Prototype
by Havoc Creations
Summary: Strong Bad's always had an active imagination. So when he suspects Homestar Runner of being a robot, no one believes him. But what if he was right? AU, slash
1. Chapter 1

**Prototype 0.1**

**A collaborative fanfiction by Jenny (chakramchucker) and Mu (badpirate)**

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Strong Bad stared at the poorly xeroxed piece of paper in his hand, nose wrinkled in disdain.

There were a lot of word combinations he disliked. Dry t-shirt contest. Rent past due. Grandma's coming to visit.

But few were as bad as _trust building exercises_. It wasn't that he minded the break from work. Staring at a screen all day when he wasn't allowed to check his e-mail was horribly boring.

No, what bothered him was that out of the thirty, maybe forty coworkers he had, he knew that somehow, someway, he was going to be paired up with...

"Strong Bad and ... Homestar Runner."

He cringed mentally. _Every freakin' time._

"Whaddya know, this makes two years in a row," his assigned partner declared in sing-song, sliding over to stand beside him. "I hope we do that animal guessing game."

Unlike Strong Bad, Homestar appeared to be happy enough with his designated companion.

Strong Bad rolled his eyes. "Three years," he corrected irritably. "This will be the third year we're partners. What are the friggen odds?"

Homestar shrugged. "I could tell ya but I think that guy's giving us the evil eye," he whispered loudly, making an evil-eye-warding symbol out of his fingers and holding it up.

The motivational speaker was indeed sending them a look, but it was out of annoyance rather than sinister intent. "Now then, this next activity is called the trust fall. I've put you in pairs so that you can take turns being the faller and the catcher. Any volunteers to demonstrate? Ah, Homestar."

"Huh?" Homestar blinked. He had his hand raised for the warning sign and quickly hid it behind his back. The damage was already done, though.

"Oh, you have gotta be kidding me," Strong Bad complained loudly. "Trust fall? Seriously? What is this, summer camp? Isn't there like ... Linux that needs to be written? Some phone calls to answer? Do we really have to do all this crap?"

The speaker sighed. He had been coming there for three years, and every year the crazy guy in the wrestling mask gave him the same speech. "Yes, Strong Bad, you really do have to do this. Come up here, boys."

"Oh come on, Strong Bad. This is way more fun than sitting at the help desk all day. We get free cookies," Homestar reminded him. He dutifully marched up to the front of the room, bypassing the rows of folding chairs that were sparsely seated. Due to a freak overnight flu epidemic, a lot of the other employees were out 'sick' today.

Strong Bad wished he had remembered that today was the trust building exercise. Then he'd 'have the flu' as well. Then again, he frequently had the flu. Or a cold. Or a freak sky diving accident. But that was last week ... he'd have to wait at least one more week to use that excuse again.

"Okay, Strong Bad, you fall and Homestar will catch you," the speaker instructed. Strong Bad gave his partner an unimpressed look.

"How about dumdum falls and I catch him? If he sees something shiny I might end up breaking my skull," he replied flatly, thumbing towards Homestar.

Homestar pouted. "But there's nothing shiny in the room besides the folding chairs and the coffee machine and those aren't that interesting."

The speaker rolled his eyes. "You'll both be taking a turn at it, so whoever goes first will be switching anyway. Part of a healthy work environment is being able to depend on your fellow employees. The trust has to go both ways."

"Ladies first," Strong Bad snickered, pushing Homestar forward.

"Okay, ready? Just close your eyes, fall back and Strong Bad will catch you. Don't be nervous," the speaker said, patting Homestar on the shoulder.

Homestar smiled weakly, glancing back at Strong Bad. He seemed to gather his courage and straightened, closing his eyes. "Allrighty." He started to lean back, then stopped himself and peeped an eye open. "Now?"

"Yes. Go," the speaker replied flatly.

"Okay, okay." Homestar glanced over his shoulder again before closing his eyes. He leaned back, teetering hesitantly on his heels before letting himself fall.

And fall. Strong Bad took a giant step back, arms outstretched. He grinned innocently when Homestar smashed to the floor, taking a folding chair with him. "Oh, gosh darn it all, did I miss? My bad."

"Strong Bad!" the speaker hissed angrily, helping Homestar to his feet. "Are you okay?"

Strong Bad rolled his eyes. "There's nothing in his head to damage, he'll be fine."

Homestar blinked and rubbed his head. "I'm g-g-good." He twitched a bit and glanced down at his arm, quickly covering a gash with his hand. "Oh! Oops..."

"Did you hurt yourself?" The speaker reached for his arm, but he pulled it away.

"Just my arm, it's fine." Homestar replied. "I better go get it fixed up, if that's okay."

"Yes, of course. The first aid kit is in Helen's office," the speaker said, but Strong Bad stared at Homestar's arm quizzically.

He followed him out of the room, arms crossed over his chest. He snickered. "Faking an injury to get out of that? Good idea, dork. You're not even bleeding."

"Of course I'm not bleeding," Homestar said, rolling his eyes. He pushed open the door to the office he had been directed to and started rummaging through shelves until he found the aforementioned emergency kit. He lifted it off the shelf with both hands and set it on the desk- Helen's desk, presumably. It then became clear why Homestar was not bleeding.

Bleeding required arteries. There was a gash on Homestar's arm, all right. But it didn't reveal the usual human tissue. Beneath a flesh-like layer of bloodless outer skin was circuitry. He bit his lip and frowned at the contents of the first aid kit, oblivious to the fact that his innards were showing. None of it seemed overly useful- then he spotted some tape. "Aha! That'll work." He nabbed it and started picking at it, trying to find the end.

Strong Bad shook his head, staring. He pointed, and his mouth opened to speak but the words didn't come out right away. Wires? Circuits?

He shook his head again and turned to leave. No. Impossible. Homestar was just faking the injury. There wasn't anything on his arm. Still ... Strong Bad looked back over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of grey and red before Homestar flattened the plastic faux flesh over it so he could tape it up.

Strong Bad turned back to the door again, visibly puzzled. Wires and circuits. In Homestar's arm. Instead of blood and flesh. He buried his head in his hand and walked back to his cubicle. Someone had to have switched the regular coffee for decaf again, because he was _clearly_ still half-asleep.

Homestar didn't notice him leave and kept talking to himself throughout the bandaging process. Upon completion, he finally glanced up and realized his partner was gone. "Strong Bad?" He popped his head out into the hallway and looked down both directions. "Hm." With a shrug and one last poke at his bandaged arm, he headed back to the conference room.

In the mean time, back in the main office...

"Psst," a voice from the cubicle beside Strong Bad's hissed. "Is it over?" Judging by the soft-spoken, dull tone of voice it was Strong Sad. His aversion to pep talks of every kind left him a refugee under his own desk. No one really noticed he was missing- in fact, the first year they'd had their team-building exercises he had actually been asked to leave, much to Strong Bad's jealous protests. Still, he enjoyed the solitude and darkness of sitting under there, even if the lighting made it hard to read.

"It is for me," Strong Bad replied boredly. He had started up a game of solitaire and was mindlessly clicking through it. He glanced over at his brother out of the corner of his eye. "You're a nerd, right?"

He paused.

"So you'd know ... hmm. How to put this… Okay. Everyone bleeds, right? No exceptions?"

"I don't know if I wanna answer that question," Strong Sad replied suspiciously as he leaned against the edge of the cubicle. Then again, if this was leading to Strong Bad punching him or something, it was probably inevitable. After thinking if over for a second he added, "Yeah. Everyone bleeds, as sure as everyone lives and dies. Unless they're already dead, of course. Then there's no pulse to make the blood flow."

"He might be braindead, but I'm pretty sure he's still ... alive," Strong Bad muttered. He went back to his game quietly.

Strong Sad raised a pale eyebrow and sighed- somewhat in relief. "So this is about Homestar? What'd you do to him now?"

"I didn't--" Strong Bad stopped his defensive remark. Oh, right. He let Homestar crash to the floor.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," he stated curtly. "But he cut himself and ... didn't bleed. I'm pretty sure I saw wires, man."

"That is strange," Strong Sad admitted. "You know, last month in my Popular Science magazine I read an article about some new prosthetics being built that mimic real limbs. Maybe he signed up for one when they were in the design stage. He must've been in some horrible accident..." he trailed off, wondering what it might have been. A car crash, probably. Those accounted for the most deaths and injuries according to nationwide statistics- right after household accidents and falls.

Strong Bad narrowed his eyes at his screen. Prosthetic limbs? How boring.

"I bet he's a robot."

Strong Sad scoffed. "You mean an android. Besides, everybody knows there hasn't been an android built yet that can copy the higher brain functions of a human being. Even Homestar has too much of a personality to be one."

"He does live with that creepy Homeschool Winner guy. He's supposed to be smart, right?" Strong Bad reminded him. He snorted dismissively. "But you're right. Homestar's not nearly cool enough to be a robot."

"Android," Strong Sad corrected.

"Whatever."

Strong Sad was quiet for a bit. "He still has a cool prosthetic limb, though," he observed. "If what you saw was real."

"I just need coffee," Strong Bad yawned. "Now go back to reading under your desk or something. I'm trying win at solitaire before the company blocks the site again."

Strong Bad and his brother managed to successfully dodge the rest of the trust building exercises-- they weren't exactly welcome company, anyway. At the end of the day, Strong Bad rummaged through his desk for some change for the bus.

"I need a friggen car," he muttered, baby brother at his heels. He glared over his shoulder. "Or you. You need a friggen car so I can sleep or play video games on the way home."

"I have a college education to pay for. Art school is expensive, you know. Maybe you could ask Homeschool for a ride," Strong Sad huffed, nodding towards a white van that had pulled up outside the office. "Or show up for work more often and get yourself a car if you want one so bad."

"Hey guys!" a familiar voice piped up from behind them. It was Homestar again, having been released from the confines of the conference room. He caught up with them and paused to blink at Strong Sad. "I didn't know you worked here."

"Only for the last couple of years," Strong Sad sighed wearily.

"We had lunch together yesterday, you moron," Strong Bad huffed. He glanced at Homestar's bandaged up arm, but didn't mention it. "Do you always get picked up? Why the crap do you never offer us a ride?"

"Oh, right. I figured he lived here or something." He shrugged at Strong Sad. "You don't seem like a help desk kind of person. You're too depressing."

"Thanks," Strong Sad said flatly. "But I don't-"

"You're welcome. Oh, and you never asked, Strong Bad. Why, do you want a ride?" Homestar perked up.

Strong Bad looked back at the windowless van and its driver, who was on a cellphone and ranting away to someone. "Pass. There's no way I'm getting in a car with Homeschool Winner. That guy gives me the jibblies."

"Aw, he's not so bad. For an uncle, I guess... even if he's the only one I got," Homestar admitted. "And he is kind of cranky when I get hurt and need repairs." He absently picked at his makeshift bandage and frowned. "Well, I better go. Seeya around." He waved and walked away.

Strong Bad was quiet when he the van drove away.

"...need repairs?" He elbowed his brother. "Told you he was a robot."

Strong Sad rolled his eyes and resumed walking toward the bus stop. "He has a prosthetic arm. And you make fun of _my_ imagination..."

"Prosthetic arm, yeah, right," Strong Bad rolled his eyes. "And is that why Homeschool changes from Homestar's cousin, to his uncle and back again all the friggen time? His memory bank is probably broken. I bet he's one of those lame housekeeping robots."

"Androids," Strong Sad corrected, annoyed. "And if he was built for housekeeping, I don't think Homeschool would let him leave the house. Plus he has a girlfriend, and androids don't have girlfriends."

Strong Bad mulled that one over. "He obviously doesn't want anyone to know he's a rob... android. But if he WERE a robot it would explain why he's so friggen fast. I never see him exercise, do you?"

"I've never seen you exercise either," Strong Sad observed flatly.

"I'm not fast. Like, inhumanly fast," Strong Bad snapped.

Strong Sad seemed to consider that point for a moment. "You know, just because he always beats you at sports doesn't mean you have to make excuses for it by claiming your opponent isn't human. He could just be a good athlete. And he probably exercises at home. He doesn't seem to have many other hobbies."

"It's not just that! He beats me at everything. He can code faster than I can, did you know that?" Strong Bad huffed. "He always gets his work done in record time. I can type 160 words per minute but he can STILL be done before I am. That means he can type like ... 190, almost 200 words per minute. Who's the fastest typist you know?"

"It still sounds to me like you're jealous," Strong Sad muttered. He knew this remark could lead to physical harm, so he quickly added, "There's just not enough evidence to prove it. Besides, what are you gonna do even if you did find out he was some sort of android?"

"I..." Strong Bad considered that and frowned, realizing that he didn't know what he'd do if Homestar was, in fact, a robot. He then punched his brother in the arm. "I'm not jealous. Let's just go, if I miss the bus because you keep rambling I'm gonna be mad."

"Ow," Strong Sad whimpered, rubbing his arm. "It was just hypothetical..."

The two siblings successfully boarded their bus fifteen minutes later, Strong Sad drowning out the trip with the compilation of Sloshy albums on his iPod until they pulled up at their street. Homeschool's van was already in his- or was it Homestar's driveway? It probably depended on which story was true, the cousin one or the uncle one. No one really questioned it. The lawn got mowed and the place seemed habitable enough. Homestar tended to spend most of his time away from it though, which lended more credibility to the idea that the house belonged to Homeschool.  
Not that anyone saw much of him to ask. He was almost more elusive than the mythical bear-holding-a-shark... but that was about to change. Later that evening, there was a knock at the door of the Strong household.

"Get the door!" Strong Bad shouted, less than a few feet from the door himself. Strong sad came down from his room with a scowl. "And why can't you answer it?"

"Because I told you to, duh," Strong Bad huffed, flipping through his magazine. "Ask a stupid question..."

Strong Sad sighed and went to comply. It was probably Homestar again. He wondered what excuse he'd use this time to barge in as he pulled open the door- and blinked. "Oh. Hi."

The awkward looking man on the other side of the doorway shifted and pulled his hands out of his pockets. He blinked at Strong Sad momentarily from behind slightly skewed glasses which he adjusted a moment later while speaking. "Yes, hello. Um... I was wondering if I could have a word with Strong Bad. Is he home, by any chance?"

"Uh, yeah. One sec, he's right here," Strong Sad replied, visibly confused. This day was getting more and more bizarre. "Uh, Strong Bad? It's for you."

"Of course it's for me, I'm the only one in this house worth talking to," Strong Bad snorted, getting up.

At that, Strong Sad rolled his eyes and motioned for the unexpected guest to come in.  
Homeschool scanned the room as he stepped inside, frowning at the empty chip bags and pizza boxes laying around the house. It was not an environment he liked to imagine his experiments taking place in, but then his research did have to involve all aspects of human behavior... even the bad ones. Thankfully there was Marzipan's place to balance this out.

"What's up?" Strong Bad asked, plopping back down into his chair. "You left your lair and your creepy van just to pay a visit?"

Snapping back to attention, Homeschool cleared his throat. His 'lair'? "No, I- I apologize for the intrusion. I'll try to get to the point quickly. As I understand you spend a lot of time with Homestar, correct?"

Strong Bad blinked. "What? No. Opposite way around. _He_ spends a lot of time with me. _I_ spend a lot of time telling him to get out of my face."

"Yes, well, in either case... I assume you were present today when he recieved his injury at work. He told me you were," Homeschool continued. He seemed to hesitate briefly. "I am here to talk about that, specifically." He seemed to be watching Strong Bad particularly attentively as he spoke. "What... if you don't mind me asking, did you see of the incident?"

He didn't respond right away, eyes flicking towards Strong Sad. "Not much. Just Dumbstar falling backwards and smacking his head. Pretty funny stuff," he replied as casually as possible. "Said he cut his arm, but uh. I didn't see anything. He's a bad liar."

Homeschool relaxed a bit. "Ah. Well don't worry, I'm not accusing you of anything. I merely wanted to know what happened for insurance purposes. You know how picky the companies get about claims."

"Yeah I know," Strong Sad said slowly. "He gets his insurance through the benefits package at work, right?"

"Er, yes," Homeschool replied, adjusting his glasses again. "Well, I won't waste any more of your time. Thank you for your assistance. If he hurts himself again, do let me know immediately. I'd rather he didn't try to tend it himself."

"Uh, sure, I guess," Strong Bad replied, frowning. He watched Homeschool go.

"...we don't ... _have_ a benefits package. Not for our level of job, anyway," Strong Bad muttered. He pointed at his brother triumphantly. "I told you he was a total weirdo. There's gonna be something going on."

"I'll believe that, but I still don't think Homestar is an android," Strong Sad responded, folding his arms over his chest. "Are you sure we should be poking around in this? There's probably a good reason Homeschool's keeping his roomie's arm a secret."

"Well kept secrets are the _only_ secrets worth finding out," Strong Bad snickered.

"Uh huh. Well, you do what you want. I don't wanna be responsible for embarassing some poor guy who lost his arm in an accident and was just trying to live a normal life. As if life isn't cruel enough." He turned and started back up the stairs to his room.

"Well, fine!" Strong Bad called out angrily. "I can't figure this out all on my own. I don't need your nerdy brand of help." He crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.

"... I gotta call Homestar," he muttered, heading for the kitchen. "I'll invite the dork to hang out with me tomorrow, he'll say yes because he's got some sort of boycrush on me, and I'll figure it out somehow. Best plan ever."

---------------

It turned out that it was not the best plan ever. No, it was the most _annoying_ plan ever. Strong Bad wished he had brought earplugs because Homestar just refused to stop babbling.

"And then she was all like, 'I don't care if you're the king of China, you still have to pay for that sandwich' so I was like that's so wrong, lady, China doesn't have kings. They have... um, sultans." Homestar blinked. "Or was it an overlord? But anyway, video games. Fun times."

Strong Bad rubbed his temples. "Yes. Yes, video games. Let's play some video games _quietly_," he groaned, slipping a quarter into the machine. He looked around the arcade. It was weird being the only two adults in the building, but arcades were dark and there were video games. Fun times indeed.

Homestar couldn't have cared less if the arcade was filled with aliens playing bingo. His mood could only be described as electric at the very fact that he was along- by invitation, for once- on an outing with Strong Bad. He grabbed the other joystick and wiggled it around for about a minute, hardly looking like he was concentrating while doing so. The pixelated dinosaur on Strong Bad's side of the screen collapsed and 'Game Over" flashed brightly. "I win. Let's do it again!"

Strong Bad growled and slipped in another quarter. "You ever play this game before?"

"Nope. It's fun, though," Homestar grinned as the game started up again.

"Hmph." Strong Bad glared at the screen. Natural talent for video games ... definitely weird, but maybe not _robot_ weird.

"So I was talking to Strong Sad and he said vampires are cooler than robots," Strong Bad said distractedly, eyes focused on the game. "What do you think?"

"Pff, of course robots are way cooler," Homestar snorted. "Vampires have to eat blood all the time and sleep in coffins. But turning into a bat is kinda cool."

Interesting. Strong Bad raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I think so too. But robots gotta like... recharge, right?"

"Um, no." Homestar blinked at him. "Duh, that's what sugar is for."

"Robots don't eat," Strong Bad pointed out. He looked away, a little annoyed. That was a flaw in his theory.

"Who told you that?" Homestar snorted. "Energy comes from sugar, sugar comes from food, and we eat the food. Seriously, Strong Bad, I thought everybody knew that."

"You're pretty ... knowledgeable about the eating habits of robots," Strong Bad pointed out suspiciously.

"Sure, I guess," Homestar shrugged. "So which game you wanna play next?'

Strong Bad pulled his pockets inside out. "Uh. Something ... free?"

"Oh. Okay then." Homestar scanned the room. There seemed to be only games with flashing screens that asked for coins, but he didn't have any coins. And if he didn't have any coins, that might mean they'd have to leave. He frowned, then perked up when he spotted a change machine. _I don't want to go home yet._

"Wait here," he said, waving a hand at Strong Bad. He walked up to the machine and started pressing keys on the number pad. He frowned when it made a beeping noise after the first series of presses, then proceeded to enter more numbers. His fingers sped across the input buttons until suddenly a torrent of quarters spilled into the change dish. It looked to be at least twenty bucks worth.

Strong Bad only looked over at the sound over crashing down coins. "What the crap... how long do you expect to stick around here, Dorkstar?" He whistled. "Shoulda told me you brought money with you."

"I didn't," Homestar replied, dropping a handful of quarters into Strong Bad's hand. "Besides, you need the practice. You're not much of a challenge."

"I'm not much of a ...?" He growled and tossed the quarters at him and stomped away. "Keep your chump change. I'm outta here. Not much of a challenge ..."

Homestar blinked after him, forgetting about the quarters. "But- wait!" He caught up with him at the door. "I don't mind, really!"

"You don't mind," Strong Bad repeated sarcastically. "Gee, thanks."

"I don't get what you're so upset about, I thought we were having fun," Homestar frowned.

"Hanging out with you is not fun," Strong Bad pointed out. "It's ... a waste of a Saturday afternoon is what it is."

Homestar was genuinely hurt by that, but tried to shake it off. "Well then- well how can I make it not... not fun? You're the one that invited me. We didn't have to come to the arcade."

Strong Bad seemed to consider it. "You can buy me lunch," he suggested. "I'm starving. The least I can do is get a meal out of this."

"Okay, let me get the rest of the quarters," Homestar said quickly, going back to gather what he could off the floor.

He waited impatiently out front. How did Homestar manage to get a zillion quarters out of the machine if he didn't bring money? Maybe he asked nicely. After all, Strong Bad was still working under the impression that Homestar was a robot. Robots and machines could talk to each other, right? Right. Of course. Somehow.

He returned a bit later with his pockets stuffed- he'd lost a few dollars worth under the machines from roll-aways, but he had more than enough for their next destination. He glanced at the sky as they headed down the sidewalk towards Marshmallow's Last Stand. It was cloudy and somewhat dark for so early in the afternoon. He wrinkled his nose at the humid air. "Man, I hope it doesn't rain. I hate rain."

Strong Bad raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh yeah? Hmm. Guess you shoulda brought an umbrella then, huh?"

"Umbrellas don't help," Homestar muttered, starting to stick his hands in his pockets only to realize they were filled with quarters.

"Maybe we'll lucky out and it won't rain," Strong Bad suggested. Truth be told, he wasn't a fan of rain, either. He looked over at him curiously. "Hey, random but ... can you swim?"

"NO," Homestar shuddered. "Can you?"

"Of course, I'm awesome," Strong Bad snorted indignantly. He gave Homestar a curious look. "But you're all ... sportsy. You can't swim? Seriously?"

"Are you kidding? Why would I want to go near all that water," Homestar replied, sounding both disgusted and maybe even a little scared at the idea.

"Afraid you'll drown?"

"Afraid I'll die," Homestar corrected. "I hate water. I could drink it, but it's got nothing in it worth drinking. It's the dumbest thing ever. It doesn't even taste good and it... I just hate it." He snorted and kicked a pebble up the sidewalk.

"Hmm." Strong Bad tapped his chin. An interesting development. Strong Sad would probably say it's just a coincidence that robots hate water like Homestar hated water, but Strong Sad was a fat moron.

He stopped when he felt a raindrop. "An umbrella would be nice," he muttered.

"Yeah, I-" Homestar stopped and his eyes widened as he felt a raindrop, too. He yelped and rubbed his arm where it had hit before dashing for the nearest awning for shelter.

Strong Bad raised an eyebrow. "It's just spitting. Stop being such a baby."

"I need to go home," Homestar whimpered, back pressed against the building as he glared at the dark specks that intermittently appeared on the sidewalk. Strong Bad or not, he wasn't ready to face a rain storm unprotected.

"Then go," Strong Bad shrugged. "It's a long walk, though. Have fun."

Homestar shook his head adamantly. "I can't walk in this!"

"Why?"

He glared at Strong Bad, feeling a momentary wave of jealousy at his apparent immunity to the very annoying problem of water. "Because."

"Because why?" Strong Bad asked, looking down at his nails as he stood in the rain defiantly.

"Because... " Homestar hesitated before sticking his hand out in the rain. He winced and shuddered at the contact before drawing his hand back under the shelter just as a faint shock of blue ran up his arm. His fingers twitched for a split second and he dried off his hand with his shirt just as Strong Bad glanced back up at him. "I... can't. What if I fall in a puddle?"

"Then you get back up," Strong Bad shrugged. "I don't see how you're getting home without getting wet, dorkstar."

He glowered out from under the awning at the dampening streets. Marshmallow's Last Stand was only just around the corner. If he moved fast enough, maybe... but no, his fear got the better of him again.

"You're right, I guess I can't go home," he huffed. He grabbed at his hat and sank down against the side of the building. "This sucks."

Strong Bad tapped his foot impatiently before he marched off. "Be right back."

He came back a few minutes with a newspaper. "It's not an umbrella but it'll do. I'll give it to you if you answer one teensy little question for me."

"Sure, anything," Homestar agreed gratefully.

"Are you a robot?"

"Of course, what else would I be?" Homestar looked surprised at the fact that he'd bothered to ask something that easy. "Well, I mean, an android... but close enough." He held out his hands for the newspaper.

Strong Bad blinked a few times, obediently handing him the newspaper. "You're ... an android? Shouldn't you be more secretive with that information? Unless you're just trying to be funny..." He tapped his chin. "...hmm. Really?"

"Um, yeah. I didn't know it- oh..." He frowned. "You know, now that I think of it, Homeschool mighta mentioned it was a secret at one point." He added in a loud whisper, "Don't tell him I told you."

"Tell him? I don't even know if I believe you." He paused to smirk. "Prove it."

"Okay." Homestar blinked at him. He wasn't entirely sure what would be considered sufficient evidence for his claim. "Like how?"

"Do something ... robot-y," Strong Bad shrugged, wiggling his fingers at him.

Homestar cocked his head. "I don't know what counts as robot-y. You do something robot-y and I'll try and copy it."

"I _can't_ do something robot-y, I'm not a robot," Strong Bad huffed. He tapped his foot on the ground. "Don't you got like ... super powers? Unless you really are one of those lame housekeeping robots. Boring."

"Aw, you're not robot?" He seemed a little disappointed. "Well, I can run fast. Can't do that in the rain, though." He bit his lip and tried to think of something. He knew humans were pretty fragile, and he knew he had to be careful not to accidentally hurt them. They weren't as strong- "Oh! I got it. C'mere," he motioned for him to step under the awning.

Strong Bad hesitantly approached him, and wrung the water from his hair. "Figured something out?"

"Yup." Homestar tucked the newspaper between his knees and grabbed Strong Bad around the waist. His companion's damp clothing had an unpleasant reaction with his artificial skin, but he ignored it for now and lifted Strong Bad as near to over his head as he could manage without knocking his head against the shelter above them.

He was met with a kick in the face thanks to that sudden movement. "Put me down you moron!" Strong Bad hissed angrily, kicking him again. This caused Homestar to lose his grip, and Strong Bad tumbled on top of him.

He groaned and rubbed his head, steadying himself up with his other hand on Homestar's shoulder, effectively pinning him to the ground. "I think I might believe you," he muttered. "Just don't you EVER do that again."

"S-sowwy," Homestar muttered, his voice retaining a digitized edge to it thanks to the facial impact. He cleared his throat and smiled nervously.

Strong Bad crossed his arms over his chest. "You're really a robot," he muttered. It didn't sound like a question, more like he was talking to himself. He pulled himself off of Homestar and sat down next to him on the curb. "You're really a robot."

"You'we weally a human," Homestar mused, getting up to sit beside him. "How weird." His voice seemed to be returning to normal.

"There's a lot more humans than robots," Strong Bad pointed out. He blinked. "Wait. Strong Sad that there's never been an android that ... could pass for human."

He paused.

"But it took me three years to figure out you're a robot. You don't ... look like a robot." He tilted his head. "I mean, you pass for human. So ... are you like ... a secret?" He snapped his fingers. "I bet that creepy Homeschool Winner made you, huh? Holy crap."

"He's my cousin," Homestar stated. "He... fixes me up and stuff. I thought there were lots of other robots like me out there." He frowned. "I bet you just never asked them like you asked me."

"No. Y... you're seriously the only one," Strong Bad insisted. He tapped his chin. "I probably shouldn't kick you in the face anymore. I can't afford to pay Homeschool if I break his invention."

"Plus, that hurts," Homestar complained.

"How can it hurt, you're a friggen robot," Strong Bad pointed out. "You can't feel. At least, you shouldn't be able to, if science-fiction movies taught me anything."

"Puh-leeze. Science fiction movies are so off," Homestar snorted, rolling his eyes. "They are fun, though. Even if the Terminator movies were kinda overboard."

"So ... you can feel?" He rested his chin on his knees, thinking it over. "Weird. Can you really feel or is just a programmed reaction... I mean, you're a robot. You don't like ... have a nervous system. So you can't really feel. Your emotions must be fake, too."

He frowned at that and turned towards Homestar. "Holy crap. You're not a real person. That's ... well, it's weird. You've been living across the street from me for three years and ... you're not real." Strong Bad sighed angrily. "How can someone so fake be so annoying," he grumbled.

Homestar shot him a glare, insulted. "Hey, I might not be fleshy but I'm still a real person," he huffed, folding his arms over his chest. "I'm not fake."

"You're not ... not fake," Strong Bad insisted. "You're a complicated program, man. I mean, there's no way you have actual emotions. That'd mean you'd have like ... a soul or something."

"Says you." Homestar snorted. "I dunno but right now my emotions are pretty insulted. I don't think they wanna buy you lunch anymore."

Strong Bad tapped his fingers on the sidewalk. He was pretty friggen hungry, but was it worth an apology?

His stomach growled loudly.

...yeah, it was. "Allright, jeez, I'm sorry. Now buy me food."

Homestar raised a suspicious eyebrow at him. "You mean it?"

"Yes, I mean it. I'm starving," he complained, pointing down the street. "Food."

"All right, apology accepted," Homestar agreed, cheering up almost instantly. He got to his feet and unfolded his newspaper, losing some of his recovered perkiness as his attention went back to the rain again. He stood uneasily at the edge of his shelter.

"Maybe we should... wait a bit."

Strong Bad snorted. "You'd think he'd remember to make you water proof."

"Oh, I am... mostly," Homestar admitted.

"Mostly?" Strong Bad leaned over curiously. "What do you mean _mostly?_"

"Well, my mouth is waterproof. The rest of me is just resistant 'cause the raindrops mess with me. A-like so..." he pulled out a quarter and held his hand out in the rain for a bit, biting his lip again as his fingers twitched occasionally. He then withdrew his hand and held it up. The quarter stuck there, magnetized. After a few seconds, a faint blue flash ran up his arm and the quarter fell off. "Doesn't feel very good," he noted. "But it doesn't... like, kill me or anything. I think." He shuddered. "I hate water."

"That's kinda neat," Strong Bad snickered. "I wonder why your mouth is water proof, though. What the crap is the point to that?"

"Eating, duh," Homestar replied. "And drinking. And... I dunno." He shrugged. "I think it was kinda expensive to do that so that's why Homeschool didn't waterproof all of me."

"Why do you eat? It seems weird to make a robot that eats," Strong Bad observed. He was quiet for a few seconds. "Kissing, probably. If you kissed someone, and they got electrocuted everyone would figure out your a robot pretty fast."

"Kissing? That's not watery. Marzipan kisses me on the cheek all the time," Homestar noted distractedly. "And I'll have you know I eat for the same reason everybody does. I gotta have fuel, man. This ticker doesn't run on an empty tank." He patted his chest. "Soo... I'm practically human anyway. Just a little better. Except for the water part."

Strong Bad snorted. "You've been going with her for three years and you haven't _really_ kissed her? Man, I guess robots don't have a sex drive," he mused. He tapped his lip. "The good kind of kissing happens lips to lips, you dork. And if it's really good, there's some spit-swapping involved. Geez. You're such a kid."

"Ohh. That kind." Homestar put his hands on his hips thoughtfully. He had seen that kind of kissing in movies before. He mentally reviewed the hazy memory files on the technique before jerking his present company forward and planting one on him experimentally. He released him and giggled. "Was that right? That was pretty good."

Strong Bad slapped him instinctively. "NO. JUST. NO. DON'T DO THAT. BAD ROBOT."

"Ow!" Homestar glared at him and rubbed his face. "What the crap was that for?"

"You kissed me!" he snapped. "You don't get to just kiss anyone you want, _especially not dudes_. Especially not dudes named Strong Bad. Like, extra extra especially on that one. Just. No." He picked up the newspaper, rolled it up and bapped him on the head. "Bad robot!"

"Cut it out, I'm not a dog," Homestar complained, readjusting his hat after backing off a bit. "I don't get what the big deal is... "

"The _big deal_ is that you're only supposed to kiss your girlfriend like that, not the guy who tolerates you," Strong Bad huffed. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

"Augh, robot cooties. You are so friggen dense. Don't you ever watch movies? Girls and boys kiss, not boys and boys. Well. That's not totally true. I guess some boys kiss but I am NOT one of those kinds of boys. Just. Augh." He retched.

"'Course I watch movies," Homestar replied defensively. "I watch tons of movies. All the time. Except when I get kicked out of the theater or when they're boring." He rubbed the back of his neck. "And I've never seen you kiss any girls so how would I know," Homestar muttered. "I thought it was a good kiss. Way better than Marzipan-style."

"Just assume every guy, by default, likes girls," Strong Bad snorted. He looked away, eyes narrowed as he mulled over the last statement. _Was_ it a good kiss?

Yes. It wasn't like any kiss he had before, anyway. Awkward teenage kisses behind the bleachers were ... no. They were forgettable, at best. Homestar was programmed pretty friggen well for a useless robot. He still hadn't figured out _why_ Homeschool made him. He wasn't a maid. He _clearly_ wasn't some subservient sex robot or else he'd be better informed.

He snorted. "For the most disgusting thing that ever happened to me, it was okay. Just don't ever do it again, got it?"

"Yes sir," Homestar agreed, sounding a bit disappointed. "Can I have my newspaper back?"

Strong Bad held it out to him. "Sure, whatever. Now come on, I'm hungry."


	2. Chapter 2

**Prototype 0.2**

**A collaborative fanfiction by Jenny (chakramchucker) and Mu (badpirate)**

--------*--------

Homestar flipped open the newspaper and held it over his head, glaring out at the rain one more time with disgust before taking a hesitant step out from under the awning. Aside from his fingers, the newspaper worked well enough to keep him dry as they dashed for the diner. He gave the puddles they encountered along the way a wide berth.

He watched him, amused. "I guess this explains why you're always 'out sick' when it rains."

"Heck yeah, I wouldn't go out in this. Not unless I had to like now," Homestar remarked unhappily. His newspaper was getting soggy and it started dripping through to his head and shoulders. He yelped and yanked open the door to the diner, throwing the paper away from himself like it had caught on fire.

He held the door for Strong Bad... and then realized his hand was stuck to it. "Uh..." He pulled a bit, not wanting to dislodge the door. He smiled nervously and closed it, forced to stand there until the effect wore off.

Strong Bad raised an eyebrow at him as he passed him by, before he remembered the magnetism thing. He snickered. "See ya at the table, nerd."

Homestar glared at him. Robots were definitely still cooler than vampires, but the whole human thing suddenly wasn't looking so bad. Then again, were vampires waterproof?

The magnetic bond between hand and door weakened soon enough and he was able to slip inside, taking a seat across from Strong Bad. "I like you and all, Strong Bad, but sometimes you're just a jerk," he snorted.

"I never said I was nice," Strong Bad shrugged, keeping his eyes on his menu.

"That's true," Homestar agreed, not sounding any further upset about it. He picked up his own menu, glaring briefly at his silverware set for daring to tremble when his hand had passed near it. Then he returned his attention to the task before him. "Hmm, what are you getting?"

"That depends on how much money we have. I have two bucks. You?" he asked, looking up at him.

"Whatever the machine gave me I guess. And whatever didn't fall under the video games..." He absently reached into his pocket, withdrawing a handful of quarters. He set them on the table, a few sticking to his hand still, and attempted to count them out. Turns out that was harder than it looked with residual magnetism affecting one's fingers.

Strong Bad bit his lip to keep from laughing. "Oh man. Hey, can you like ...? Well, you said you didn't put money into the change machine. Did you like ... overload it? Can you do that to the ATM machine?"

"Probably," Homestar shrugged, still trying to count out his change.

"Score! Get us..." He grabbed the back of his head and turned it so he was facing the ATM in the corner of the foyer. "...about a hundred bucks outta that. That's a safe enough starting point."

Homestar frowned. "What do we need a hundred bucks for?"

"Food, booze. Uh. Various necessities?" Strong Bad shrugged. "You had no problem taking twenty dollars in quarters.

"Um..." Homestar seemed to genuinely consider it for a moment. "No, I still don't think that's a good idea. I have enough for food, let's just get that."

"You really wanna pay our waitress in _quarters?_" Strong Bad raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Come on, man. Twenty dollars, one hundred dollars... what's the difference in the grand scheme of things?"

"It's cheating. I don't cheat," Homestar countered flatly. "And I was just borrowing the arcade quarters so you wouldn't leave."

"Come on," Strong Bad groaned, whining slightly. He grabbed his hand from across the table. "I thought we were _friends._ A real friend would jack the ATM machine for me."

Homestar raised an eyebrow at him. "He would, huh. I thought friends more like, hung out at each other's houses and played video games and watched movies together and stuff."

"Regular friends, sure. _Best_ friends help each other out no matter what," Strong Bad pouted and gave his best puppy dog eyes. "Please?"

"Best... friends?" Homestar just blinked at him. He'd always had the sneaking suspicion that their 'friendship' didn't quite go both ways thanks to subtle hints like Strong Bad always telling him to get lost and complaining about how annoying he was. This seemed too good and sudden to be true. Almost. He rolled his eyes and smiled a bit, caving in to those green, pleading eyes. "All right, I'm going. But just this once." He pushed himself up and went over to the foyer.

Strong Bad smirked once he left. He made a mental note to thank his father for the big green eyes-- he learned how to do the best puppy dog eyes ever early in childhood. Being a middle child sucked, so he had to have _some_ advantage.

When Homestar returned a few moments later, Strong Bad was already halfway done his soda. "Ordered you a Mountain Dew. You kept going on and on about sugar and it's the sweetest thing I can think of, so there ya go."

"Awesome," Homestar muttered, a little preoccupied with the cash in his hand. He kept shifting through it nervously. At least this didn't stick to him when he counted it. "So I got some bad news," he admitted at last. He lowered his voice and glanced around. "I think I mighta taken out too much."

"How much too much?" Strong Bad asked suspiciously. "Like ... thirty dollars too much or...?"

"Like an extra... zero... too much..." Homestar finished in a loud whisper. "Sorry. I tried to stick it back in but it kept saying my card wasn't valid, whatever that means."

Strong Bad's jaw dropped. "You took out a thousand dollars?" he hissed, trying to keep his voice down. "Frick. Well, what's done is done, I guess." He frowned. That was going to be ... noticeable when the mechanic came by to fix up and restock the machine. "Jesus, Homestar, can you be any more dense?"

"It's not my fault, my finger got stuck to it and I bumped the zero button an extra time," Homestar hissed defensively.

"How is that _not your fault?_"

Homestar blinked. "It's... just not. It's my finger's fault."

Strong Bad slapped his forehead. "Whatever. It happened, we'll deal with it. I'm gonna be late on rent anyway, so maybe this is a good thing."

"Will you take it? Homeschool's gonna reprogram me if he finds out I borrowed this much money." He shoved the wad of bills towards Strong Bad.

"It's a sacrifice I'm gonna have to make," Strong Bad said, sighing dramatically. "For you. Because we're best friends and all. Speaking of which, you should totally stay at my house tonight."

"Really?! Oh man, this's gonna be fun," Homestar exclaimed gleefully. He could barely contain his excitement enough to keep his mouth sealed to the straw of his drink as he took a sip. "I totally think we should watch a scary movie. And we should get some marshmallows. And popcorn. And I can bring some of my video games over..."

"Slow down, bucko. Don't you gotta ask Homeschool if it's okay first? He's like ... your dad. Or at least your over-protective college roommate," Strong Bad said, shushing him.

Their waitress walked back to the table and giggled.

"We ready to order?"

"Haven't even looked at the friggen menu yet," Strong Bad sighed, glaring at his eating partner. The girl shook her head. "First date, huh? Take your time, boys."

"DATE?" Strong Bad repeated curtly. "No. Just. No, not at all." What was with today? It was just getting gayer and gayer.

"I"m just sleeping over," Homestar clarified. "He's not a girl so I can't date him."

"Oh. I'm sorry. It's just that you guys were holding hands earlier...?" she said apologetically. Strong Bad sent her a nasty glare and she took the hint to leave.

"What the frick, man? Date indeed," he snorted. "My standards are way too high for a dork like you."

"They are?" Homestar looked cut low at that. "Not like it matters, I guess. Wait... guys can date other guys? I thought you said you weren't into that."

"I'm _not_. Some are," Strong Bad shrugged.

"Oh. So... if I was a girl, I'd meet your standards," Homestar concluded.

"I guess," he stated boredly. He snapped back into the discussion. "Wait, what? No. I mean. Maybe? I don't know, man. This is a weird conversation."

Homestar chuckled. "Hm, that's not very many standards I gotta qualify for. Yours must be pretty friggen low."

"Female, hot, and _human_," he said, making sure there was an extra emphasis on that last quality.

Homestar stopped chuckling and swirled his straw around in his soda. He couldn't do much about that last one. "I dunno, I don't think dating a robot would be so bad..."

"Of course you don't, _you are one_. That's like dating my toaster. What do you care, anyway? Marzipan still thinks your human. Chances are she wouldn't care either way," Strong Bad said, rolling his eyes. "Robot Rights and all that jazz. Jeez."

"Yeah but Marzipan doesn't kis- hey... I'm not a toaster," Homestar glared at him, interrupting himself as soon as he caught on to the insult.

Strong Bad snickered. "I guess not. You're more like ... a tamagotchi."

"I don't get what fruit has to do with anything," Homestar snorted.

"Wha... no, I mean one of those super annoying virtual... nevermind. You probably weren't even built yet when those were around," he mused. He was quiet for a moment. "If you want Marzipan to kiss you like that, just kiss her first. You didn't seem to have any problem kissing _me_. Should be a no-brainer. Uh, no ... computer ...chip...er. Whatever it is you have instead of a brain."

Homestar shrugged. "I never really wanted to kiss her like that, but I guess I could try it. Then again I don't wanna get slapped like with you."

"She's your girlfriend, she's not _going_ to slap you. And you should WANT to kiss her. It's been like ... three years, dude."

"Yeah. It's been decent I guess, but I just don't think I feel up to it yet. I'm pretty good with how stuff is now, when she's... not dumping me. Or going out on protest rallies. Or trading out cable so she can pay for all her dumb gardening... parties... and always tellin me to take the garbage out and clean my grafitti off her back porch." He frowned and sighed harshly. "Homeschool says I shouldn't give up but seriously, sometimes she just gets on my nerves. Even if she is nice... when she's not that other stuff."

Strong Bad didn't say anything for a moment. "...is he ... _making_ you go out with her?" he asked curiously. "Because that's just mean. To Marzipan, I mean. Stringing her along like that because he wants to observe human behavior or something."

"Well, he's not... forcing me. It's just the last time I tried to break up with her, he kinda flipped out and got really depressed. He doesn't seem to care about Marzipan all that much. He just says it's good for me or whatever. Hanging around her seems to make him happy and it's something to do whenever Strong Sad changes your door locks. Plus, Marzipan is a better cook than Homeschool if you don't mind vegan."

"Homeschool's weird," Strong Bad muttered. He didn't say much of anything for a minute, his brain piecing together a few things that he didn't really want pieced together ... like the fact that Homestar was desperate to spend time with him, and the fact that he had no qualms kissing him right on the lips. Not to mention that bizarre conversation about his standards and the benefits of dating robots. He rapped his fingernails on the table.

Frick. All evidence pointed towards one conclusion Strong Bad had no intention of acknowledging. His eyes flicked towards Homestar. Homeschool _had_ to have done this on purpose, but why the crap would he program his invention to have a crush on him? That seemed ... counter-productive. He could understand Marzipan. Normal male-female interactions and all that. He could understand programming Homestar to want to be _friends_ with him.

But a full-blown, pathetically obvious crush? That didn't seem scientific in the slightest. He huffed. "Where's the waitress, I'm ready to order," he muttered.

Homestar continued to poke at his ice with his straw in oblivious silence until the waitress in question returned. He ended up ordering the most sugar-laden thing on the menu- chocolate chip pancakes. And naturally, a refill on his Mountain Dew.

Strong Bad was quietly plotting out things to do with his robot best buddy. He could break into Bubs' with that super strength of his. That could be fun. He could jack another ATM-- also fun, and quite profitable.

Mostly he wanted to rub it in Strong Sad's face that he was right about the 'Homestar's a robot' thing. He frowned. But would Strong Sad rat him out? Not if he threatened him enough, but who knew how much 'enough' was. This was a pretty big thing. He looked Homestar over.

He definitely looked human. He _acted_ like a moron, but he looked human. Tall, realistic enough hair (Strong Bad briefly wondered if his hair was human hair, but didn't ask. The answer would probably gross him out), kinda handsome-ish if one was into that sort of thing.

"Do you have any idea why Homeschool made you?" he asked suddenly. "Like ... your function. What's your function?"

Homestar stopped mopping condensation off his glass of soda with a napkin and glanced up briefly. "I dunno. I work at the help desk at the tech company. Maybe that's it."

"That seems ... stupid. If he wanted that, he'd just do it himself," Strong Bad muttered. "Maybe you're a secret government weapon."

"Ooh, ya think so? That'd be pretty cool," Homestar admitted. "Like a super spy... except I don't have any guns."

"Says you. Maybe he has a safety word that turns you into a gun-toting mega solider," Strong Bad mused. "Awesome."

"Yeah maybe. Or it could be like The Hulk. Better not make me mad," he smirked. He held up his hand and turned it over, examining it. "I wonder how they'd fit those weapons and stuff in there. I woulda thought I'da seen it when Homeschool was repairing me."

Strong Bad tapped his fingers on the table, almost shyly. "Hey, um. When we get to my place would it be like ... possible to see..." He wiggled his fingers at him. "...you know, some robot-y...stuff?"

"I don't know, last time you asked for robot-y stuff you kicked me in the face for it," Homestar frowned. "We could just play video games. That sounds way more fun than face kicking."

"I promise not to kick you in the face." He clapped his hands together pleadingly. "Come on. Just show me some wires and circuits or something. Nothing major."

"But that's... private. I'm not supposed to mess with that stuff. Just like you're not supposed to mess with your insides." He folded his arms over his chest defensively.

Strong Bad got up and slid over to his side of the booth. "Come on, it's not like it'll hurt you, right?"

"Well, sorta... no, I guess," Homestar admitted. Not permanently, anyway. "But it's indecent to just show off my parts to whoever asks. I don't think I know you well enough to be comfortable with this."

"But we're _best friends_," Strong Bad replied, pouting slightly. "Come on, it's not like I'm asking you to take your head off. I'm just asking you to show me a few wires. Just peel back the skin on your ..." He paused. No, not the arms. There was still a minor chance that Homestar was just messing with him and had prosthetic arms." ... chest. It'll take you two seconds."

He scratched under Homestar's chin. "Please?"

Homestar struggled to resist. It didn't work out very well. He pulled away from Strong Bad shyly. "Um, well, I g... guess. But don't touch anything. I don't wanna break myself."

Strong Bad made a cross over his chest and got up to go to his side of the booth. "Sure thing," he snickered. Maybe this little crush wasn't such a bad thing. It made roping Homestar into things way easier.

Homestar returned to drinking his soda. Had he the capability to blush, he would have been doing so. That was one advantage of his mechanical nature. He didn't get why Strong Bad seemed so interested in his internal construction. What was so great about wires, anyway? But, if it got his attention, well then who was he to turn down the request... even if Homeschool wouldn't be happy about him cutting open his artificial skin again. He'd have to come up with another story for that one.

His thoughts were interrupted when his cell phone rang. He blinked and pulled it out of his pocket. "Uh oh. I think I was supposed to be doing something with her today. Hold on a sec." He flipped it open.

"Sup, Marzi. ...No. ...I'm pretty sure I forgot about it. ...yeah, whatever. ...no, I didn't take your stupid tote bag... well duh, they were sitting on the counter so of course I ate them." He paused to sigh, slouching onto his elbows. "Yeah, okay. ...bye." He flipped the phone closed and hit his head against the table. "Ugh."

"Girl troubles?" Strong Bad smirked. "Lemme guess. You had a date with her but you blew her off for me."

"I see her all the time. She's just being dumb," Homestar snorted, head still resting on the table. "And she says I'm taking stuff without asking again and I'm not."

"You do that all the time. Last week you took my stapler while I was sitting there. You didn't even ask," Strong Bad shrugged.

"That wasn't your stapler to begin with," Homestar reminded, lifting his head. "You took it from the intern. And I meant more recently. And I only borrow stuff. I give it back eventually."

"Interns don't count as people," Strong Bad snorted. "Anyway, what does she think you took?"

"She had some stupid scrapbooking totebag and she claims I was using her stuff to make origami a while back and didn't give it back. I don't even remember ever learning origami." He blinked. "And I ate her cookies that I guess were for her garden club but that wasn't my fault. They were sitting out."

"Ugh, vegan cookies." He retched. "I can't believe you eat that crap. It's like rabbit food."

"They're not that bad. She makes really good vegan sugar cookies," Homestar remarked. He slumped back against the booth and frowned, adding, "But I'm not gettin' any for a while now. She broke up with me again."

Strong Bad rolled his eyes. "So, what? You'll be going a week without _cookies_," he stated flatly. "You're lucky. Most guys just go a week without way more important things."

"Like what," Homestar shrugged. To him, there wasn't a whole lot more important about dating Marzipan than the cookies. Well, there used to be cable. Watching movies was still good, he supposed. And she was always nicer to hang out with and talk to than Homeschool. Okay, so that was a little more than cookies... but it was still the first thing that came to mind.

Unlike Homestar, Strong Bad did possess the ability to blush. Thankfully, though, he had black vinyl to help him hide it. "Like ... well, you know."

There was no way he was that dense. But the blank expression on Homestar's face confirmed his suspicions. "Like ... uh ... brownies."

"Oh. Marzipan makes those, too sometimes," he sighed wistfully. "Maybe I can go to the store and get some."

"I can make some," Strong Bad said boredly. "I hate store bought cookies. So gross."

"You can cook?" Homestar snorted. "You aren't bad at it, are you? I get enough burnt stuff at home."

"Yes, I can cook," he snapped, visibly insulted. "I'm a great cook!"

Homestar smirked. "We'll have to see about that. As a robot, I have a very sensitive sense of taste you know. Only the best." He wasn't entirely sure about the claim, but he decided it sounded good.

"I bet anything that my cookies are better than Marzipan's," Strong Bad huffed indignantly.

"Not if you cook as bad as Homeschool," Homestar stated. He tapped his chin. "You'll bet anything, huh. How 'bout you bet a kiss on it? I gotta... um. Work on that so I can get back with Marzipan and all."

"...what?" Strong Bad laughed nervously. "You've gotta be kidding. No way."

"If you're that good it doesn't matter what you bet, right? So... I want that," Homestar said. "Otherwise I'd rather go to the store, to be safe. You don't seem like a cookie-making guy to me."

Strong Bad narrowed his eyes and thought it over. He was an _awesome_ cook, if he did say so himself. He was pretty good at baking, too. But the idea of having Homestar Runner kiss him again was a little ... off-putting.

"Fine. You have yourself a deal. I know I'm awesome," he stated smugly, holding his hand out to him. "Couple of rules. On the very very _very_ slim chance I lose, the kiss can't last more than three seconds and if there's any tongue I get to kill you. You also gotta be totally honest. No lying just because I'm super hot and you wanna makeout with me, okay?"

"I never said you were super hot. But agreed," Homestar shook his hand. He was a little surprised he'd gotten him to agree to something like that, but then again he had already scored a sleepover and willing hanging-out time. Anything seemed possible at this point.

"It goes without saying," Strong Bad shrugged. "Not like I'm going to lose, anyway."

Homestar just folded his arms over his chest and grinned smugly. He wouldn't really lose either. Cookies and real kisses were good either way. Even if he found himself slightly preferring one to the other.

The food came soon enough, and as soon as the rain let up the two ran off to Strong Bad's house. Homestar stepped in a puddle at one point and got his foot stuck to a manhole for a few minutes, which Strong Bad was still laughing about when he got into the house.

"Oh MAN. Hey, Strong Sad! Stop writing about how horrible your life is on your online journal and come down here! I got something to show ya!" He turned towards Homestar and lifted up his shirt. "Okay, now where to make a little cut to see the wires..."

Strong Sad plodded out of his room upstairs in time to catch Homestar shoving his older brother away and pulling his shirt back down. "What are you doing? Or maybe I don't wanna know..."

"I'm not a toy," Homestar huffed.

"No, you're better," Strong Bad grinned. He pointed to Homestar and addressed Strong Sad. "He's a robot. Like, an actual one. I told you so."

The younger brother rolled his eyes. "Give it a rest, will you?"

Homestar, meanwhile, was glaring holes through Strong Bad and had folded his arms over his chest protectively. He didn't like being treated as an object, even if it meant more attention.

"No, I'm serious. Homestar, show him," Strong Bad pleaded, motioning to his brother.

"No," Homestar replied curtly.

"...what the crap do you mean _no?_"

"That wasn't part of the agreement," Homestar replied flatly.

Strong Sad raised an eyebrow. Now he was sure Strong Bad was trying to stage something to mess with him. "Maybe next time you should get your co-conspirators to put it in writing," he muttered, turning to go back to his room.

"Wait, I swear he's..." He watched Strong Sad and rounded on Homestar angrily. "What the crap was that about?!"

Homestar narrowed his eyes at him. "I told you I don't like showing that stuff off to random people."

"Strong Sad is not _random people_, he's my brother! And I need to prove that he was wrong about you," Strong Bad huffed.

"Is that why you invited me over?" Homestar frowned. "That's just rude. Here I thought you actually wanted to hang out with me."

He hesitated. "Well ..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "...well, what does it matter? I invited you over. I just figured in addition to hanging out we could show up my stupid, know-it-all baby brother."

"Of course it matters! Now I think I know why Homeschool didn't want me tellin' people about myself... " he pouted. "They make too big of a deal out of it. I'm not showing up anything to anybody."

"You are a big deal! That's why we make a big deal about it." Strong Bad sighed, annoyed. There wasn't much he could do about it. Great-- now he looked like a total moron in front of Strong Sad. Not exactly a new experience, but still a painfully unpleasant one.

"Fine, whatever. Be stubborn, you dumb ... whatever."

"I'm still a person," Homestar snapped. "And I like my privacy." He lowered his arms. "So, are we hangin' out now or what?"

Still a person. Strong Bad looked away, eyes narrowed. Yeah, right. "I guess. I have cookies to make, apparently, so go ...busy yourself or something. The last thing I need is you looking over my shoulder as I bake."

"Why? I gotta make sure you're not cheating at it," Homestar pointed out.

"How the heck can I _cheat_ at making cookies?" Strong Bad snapped.

"By getting somebody else to make them," Homestar responded. "I don't really know you made them unless I see it."

He rolled his eyes, and got an idea. He smirked. "Strong Mad's not allowed to the use the oven, so you're safe there. Why don't you go hang out with Strong Sad? Then you'll know I'm the only one in the house that's making anything."

Homestar considered it for a moment. "I guess that'll work... but no cheating in any other ways, either. I'll totally know."

"Scout's honor," Strong Bad shrugged, heading for the kitchen.

It was cruel and unusual punishment, as far as Strong Sad was concerned. He leaned over his sketchbook, trying to tune out the million questions Homestar was firing off. "Homestar, I'm doing my homework. Why are you here?" he asked tiredly.

"I think Strong Bad wanted me out of the kitchen or something like that," Homestar admitted. "And I have to make sure he doesn't cheat." The unwelcome guest had made himself at home sitting on the edge of Strong Sad's bed. "So what homework are ya doing? Math? English? Gym?"

"Art," Strong Sad replied flatly.

"Art isn't homework," Homestar snorted.

"It is for me," he muttered, slightly offended by the comment but unwilling to voice it. "I go to art school. My painting teacher is kind of a pain ... but I'm not going for painting, anyway. I wanna be a writer. I just need this class to graduate."

"Oh, I see," Homestar said in much the same way he did around Marzipan when he didn't really care about half of what she'd responded with. "I spray painted a porch once. Actually, twice. It didn't go over well the first time around. I think I overdid it with the doodles and I had to paint them over. But spray painting is way faster than painting with a brush or a roller, for the record."

"I can image," Strong Sad replied, sounding distracted. He tried to get back to painting. "You know, you really shouldn't indulge Strong Bad's overactive imagination."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Homestar asked, bouncing his heels against the floor boredly.

"He tends to blow things out of proportion. I mean, you ... an android?" He scoffed at the idea. "Just try and tone it down. Once he gets his head wrapped around an idea it's hard for him to let it go."

"Oh, that. Yeah. Him and his crazy ideas... I'm totally a human. I act like one, right? I do. Because I'm not a robot at all. I mean, android." Homestar rubbed the back of his neck.

"Of course you're not an android, there's no androids built yet that can mimic a human personality," Strond Sad said quietly. "Anyone who could do that ... well, he'd be playing God. There's moral issues there. An android that can think, feel ... love. We won't see that in our lifetime."

"Sure," Homestar muttered. "It'd take like, decades for the guy just to convince people he wasn't a toaster."

"I don't think people's stereotypes of robotics and their limitations will ever go away. It's too bad. It'd be interesting to see how far science will push a faux-personality on an android." He stopped sketching long enough to think about it. "I mean, would it portray human emotions? If it could, then it would need to be able to analyze situations and respond accordingly ... it would be the most advanced computer in the world, really. But maybe it's better that there's no androids ... if there were, what reason would there be to push oneself to succeed? Why bother excelling when there's an android whose smarter, stronger, faster ..."

Homestar blinked. "Wait, so the bad thing about robots is that... they're better at stuff? That's what you said, right?" He couldn't really be sure. There had been an awful lot of words in there. "That doesn't make sense."

"Of course," Strong Sad replied. "Think about it. Why would children go out for sports when there's an android that can already run twice as fast with none of the effort? Why bother learning to play an instrument when an android can be programmed with all the greatest songs known to man?"

"Um, because you can still do it anyway. Who cares if the android guy does it all better? He still has to have somebody to race against," he frowned.

"If there's no chance at being the best at something, some people might lose their drive," Strong Sad shrugged.

"Hmm." For the first time since he'd been in Strong Sad's room, he fell quiet for a little while. "Well, maybe the guy could just pretend to be bad at some things."

"It," Strong Sad corrected. "An android would technically be devoid of gender."

"He would not," Homestar snapped. "And calling him 'it' all the time would be mean. Especially since he has feelings and is sick of people telling him he doesn't." He huffed and folded his arms.

Strong Sad raised an eyebrow at him. "Uh ... huh. Well, I don't think we have to be concerned with hurting the hypothetical android's hypothetical feelings for a few decades. Maybe even never."

"Oh. Right." Homestar tapped his fingers on his arm and looked away. "Still. If you were an android, I don't think you'd like being called 'it' either. Actually, you're kind of weird so maybe you would."

Strong Sad paused his sketching to glare at him. "Why don't you go check on Strong Bad," he suggested forcefully-- well, as forcefully as Strong Sad could be.

"Hmm, that's a good idea. I'm glad I thought of it," Homestar remarked, getting up off the edge of the bed. "Gotta make sure he's not cheating." With that, he exited the room.

"Oh thank god," Strong Sad muttered in relief, getting back to his school work.


	3. Chapter 3

**Prototype 0.3**

**A collaborative fanfiction by Jenny (chakramchucker) and Mu (badpirate)**

Strong Bad was, in fact, not cheating. He scratched his head and flipped through his mother's cookbook. Sugar cookies weren't exactly his speciality, but he felt it only fair that the basis for comparison be the same type of cookie. He frowned. Why can't Marzipan make vegan _chocolate chip_ cookies? He could make those in his sleep. "Crap."

Homestar peered around the corner of the kitchen before stepping across the threshold. "Are you done yet?"

He jumped and glared at him. "Almost," he muttered, licking his thumb and flipping another page. "I'm just looking for my mom's last note card before I put them in the oven. What happened to bugging Strong Sad?"

"Oh, I did that already," Homestar replied.

Strong Bad sighed, annoyed. That didn't last as long as he hoped. "I'm sure my recipe is fine," he muttered, sticking the pan in the oven. He frowned. How long do they go in for, anyway? "I'll play it by ear," he decided aloud, sitting at the kitchen table. He grabbed the newspaper and found the comics page.

Homestar sat down across from him and rapped his fingers on the table as he looked around the kitchen. There were some dishes sitting in the sink from Strong Bad's recent baking endeavors, a box of cereal on the counter by the toaster. He stopped to glare at the toaster. He still didn't get how Strong Bad could compare him to one of those things. At least blenders had personality... toasters couldn't even carry on a conversation.

Speaking of which, Strong Bad wasn't paying attention to him anymore and he was bored. "Sooo... " he searched for inspiration and noticed the knife rack nearby. "You still wanna see my wires and stuff? Since Strong Sad's busy."

Strong Bad's eyes flicked up at him. "Really?"

"Sure. But just you. You have to promise not to tell anybody about me because I don't like people acting all weird. If you promise it's a secret, I'll show ya." He leaned against the table expectantly.

He didn't respond right away. Wasn't the best part about being right showing it off to everyone?

Still, curiosity got the better of him. "Deal."

"Good," Homestar grinned. He got up and grabbed a knife off the counter, setting it on the table briefly to take off his shirt. Then he picked up the utensil, holding it hesitantly over his chest. The skin might be artificial, but he had been designed with the equivalent of nerve receptors on most of his body. Homeschool usually disabled them before doing maintenance. He didn't have that luxury now.

He bit his lip and drew the knife across, parting the bloodless faux flesh and then holding the little gash open with one hand. "There we go."

Strong Bad stared. "Woah," he breathed, getting up from his chair to get a closer look. "Holy crap you weren't just lying to try and impress me. Y... you ... you really..." He ran a finger gently over the exposed wires. "Holy _crap_."

Homestar smirked proudly. "I toldja. Just don't bump anything. I don't really know what those wires do." He pulled away a bit.

"I won't. Jeez," he muttered, but he didn't sound as annoyed as he intended. He chuckled. "Wow. That's ... and that's all over?"

"Yup. I have some plastic bits for protection or whatever but... all wires and this fake muscle stuff. And I think my skeleton might be some kinda metal but I'm not sure." He tapped his chin thoughtfully before pulling the window into his inner systems open a little wider and jamming a finger in to feel around. A second later he eeped and jerked his finger out. "That did not feel so great. I think I'll just ask Homeschool later." He folded the skin over and wiped some kind of conductive gel off on his pant leg before reaching for his shirt.

"A...are you sure you're okay like that?" Strong Bad asked. "I mean, I kicked you in the face and you felt it ... doesn't that hurt?"

"Well... yeah, a bit. The kick in the face hurt worse." He shrugged. "I meant to ask- do you guys have some tape?" He used the hand that was currently not busy holding a shirt to keep the gash closed. "It's not so bad if I tape it over so it's not like, catching on my shirt."

"Oh, uh, yeah." Strong Bad got up and searched through the cupboards. He pulled out some medical tape and sniffed the air. "...OH CRAP." He tossed the tape to Homestar and ran to the oven, slipping his oven mitts on in the process. "Frick! I hate making sugar cookies and THIS IS WHY."

He pulled out the tray and charred, black would-be cookies. He frowned. "Crap."

Homestar started patching himself up and then walked over to survey the damage, shirt still tucked under his arm. "Wow, those don't look like cookies at all. I don't think you did it right."

"I did it fine, I just forgot about them in the oven thanks to your ... wire-y-ness." He frowned and slid the cookies into the trash. "What a friggen waste."

"You coulda used them for charcoal briquettes," Homestar observed, attempting to make a helpful suggestion.

"_Shut up_."

Homestar shrugged. "Well, you could've. I guess this means ya lose the bet, huh."

He glared at him. "What? No. That so doesn't count."

"Well, you dumped 'em in the garbage. I didn't get to try one but... I don't think they would've been any good. So, you lost." Homestar paused to pull his shirt on.

"You have gotta be kidding me! I only burned them because you distracted me. They woulda been awesome," Strong Bad huffed.

"But they weren't awesome. They were burnt." Homestar smirked. "Time to pay up, buster. This'll only take a second." He snagged Strong Bad and pulled him forward into a kiss.

Strong Bad let out what he decided was an extremely manly and not at all gay squeak in surprise. _Crap_. He seemed to be getting roped into a lot of these things lately.

_Oh well. Might as well try to enjoy it. Just picture Farrah Fawcett._ He closed his eyes and hesitantly kissed him back. It lasted a bit longer than his regulated three seconds before he turned his head to the side to break it.

"You're such a dork. Getting so worked up over a stupid kiss." He wasn't sure who he was talking to, himself or Homestar, but he quietly hoped that Homestar wasn't able to detect heat or anything. God forbid he know just how bad he was blushing under his mask.

Homestar just chuckled. "I dunno, they seem to keep gettin' better. Especially when you're participating on the other end and not... slappin' me after." He grinned and stretched an arm, only to stop and wince. Oops, forgot about that already. He rubbed his chest briefly. "You should retry those cookies now. I still want some."

The blush got slightly worse. "I'm outta ingredients. Like I said, total waste. Listen, don't... get used to that, okay? I'm not into guys. Not that you're ... really a gu..." He paused at that.

It wasn't really _gay_ if the other 'person' was a robot, was it? He considered it. Well, not _technically_. Homestar was guy shaped but not ... really male. Maybe he could coerce Homeschool into making him female-shaped next upgrade. Then the whole 'I really like kissing Homestar Runner' thing wouldn't be as weird. It would still be weird, but not nearly as weird.

He frowned. "...not really a guy," he finished, still in thought.

Homestar frowned. "Well, I'm not a toaster," he huffed. "And I never said anything about getting used to anything. Unless you end up making another bet, because you'd lose those all the time," he noted with a snort.

"I didn't SAY you were a toaster, you're just not ... you know, a guy." He motioned to him. "You're ... I don't know. You're not a guy. That's important. Just trust me, it is."

He didn't say anything for a moment. "Hey, how about later tonight we go to Bubs' place? I need to get um. Eggs. And maybe some other things. Sound good?"

Homestar blinked. "Sure, I guess. But first we should play some video games. I can even help you not suck at them as much if you want. I know some trade secrets," he stated smugly. He also wanted to try out that whole idea of not letting himself win all the time and see if it helped any. Strong Sad might be dull and boring, but occasionally he inspired some actual ideas. And occasionally, those ideas worked.

"Sounds like a plan," Strong Bad agreed, shrugging his shoulders. They had to wait until after Bubs closed up, anyway.

The duo proceeded to the living room and settled in on the couch for a few hours of game time. Homestar leaned over and tried to 'help' his opponent out a few times only to be shoved away. He soon found out that making the suggestions without attempting to commandeer the game controller worked out a lot better. He tried to tune down his reflexes a bit to make it easier to play against him as well. That, and he set a higher handicap in the games that had that option. It seemed to work out a bit better than their time at the arcade, anyway.

Especially for Strong Bad. "Hell yes!" He took another sip of his beer before slamming down the empty bottle victoriously. "I win again. Guess robo-reflexes aren't totally perfect after all."

"Or maybe it's the alcohol," Homestar suggested, though he was pretty sure that didn't have any effect on him. He just liked pretending to get buzzed, even if his system processed it like any other fluid. "Wanna go again?"

"Nah," Strong Bad said, making a 'psshing' sound. "I like to end on a victory, if you dun mind." He giggled. "Ah jeez, I think Bubs'll have to wait til tomorrow. I am ... way too drunk to walk anywhere."

"Well if you need eggs you could send Strong Sad out to get 'em. You usually do that anyway," Homestar pointed out. He smirked. "Otherwise I could carry ya."

"I'd say 'I'd like ta see ya try', but I know now that ya can. Kinna easily," he giggled. "Soooo, I won't." He leaned against his shoulder. "Though, I may require you to get me to my bed. I dun know how I'm gonna walk up tha steps like this."

Homestar seemed to consider it. He took a while to do so, enjoying the attention to his shoulder. After a bit he grinned. "Yeah I guess I can do that." He got up off the couch, dropping the buzzed act, and scooped up his drunken companion easily.

Strong Bad yelped and inadvertently wrapped his arms around his neck to steady himself. "Didn't mean now you idiot!"

Homestar giggled. "Well, you didn't say." He just stood there, not bothering to put him back on the couch. It wasn't any strain on him, after all.

Strong Bad loosened his grip around his neck. "Put me down you moron," he hissed.

"Okay. Where?" Homestar replied with a grin.

"THE COUCH."

"Right now?"

"YES RIGHT NOW."

"Kay," Homestar giggled again and sat down on the couch, setting Strong Bad off beside him so he was half on his lap. "Man, you're bossy."

Strong Bad pushed him away and scooted off of him. "You're such a friggen pain."

"Speakin' of pain, watch where you're pushing," Homestar grunted, rubbing his chest again where the tape was.

"Sorry," Strong Bad snickered, not seeming very sorry. "But hey it's your own fault, shouldn't 'a picked me up all bridal style like that. I'm not a friggen girl, yanno."

"I didn't know there was a style, I just picked you up," Homestar shrugged.

"Geez, what were ya built yesterday?" He snorted. "When people get married there's a ... the guy carries the girl over the threshold. It's symbolic or sumthin'. S'best not to do it that way."

"Well I don't want to drop you. That seemed like the best way. And I wasn't built yesterday, I was built... " he paused and seemed to count something off on his fingers. "Like, 3 years, two months, twelve days and 4 hours ago. And some minutes. My memory is kinda out of whack on the minutes 'cause of maintenance and all that."

"...YOU'RE THREE YEARS OLD?"

"Um, I guess. Unless I just don't remember before that. Why, how old are you?" Homestar inquired.

"26," he said, looking a little weirded out. "Holy crap I made out with a toddler."

"Hey, I'm not a little kid," Homestar protested. "I'll have you know I was programmed to function as-" he blinked as he caught on to Strong Bad's response. "Wait, 26... years? Dang, you are old. You're like a grandpa. You look pretty good though."

"I'm not that old," Strong Bad snapped.

"Uh, yeah you are. That's like, eight-point-six-five of my lives. And you don't even have a girlfriend or anything. That's kinda sad," Homestar frowned.

"Gjjk-! It is not sad! I'm just picky, allright?" he huffed, and looked away angrily. "I'm allowed to be picky with the lady-types."

"Not twenty-six years of picky," Homestar remarked. "Heck, I met Marzipan almost right away. I mean you haven't even dated any girls that I can remember."

"You've only been around for three years," he said defensively. "And who the crap do you think dated Marzi before you showed up? Me. In high school. So there."

"Really? I never would've guessed. She kind of hates you," Homestar observed. "I think you're makin' that up."

"She kind of hates me because I might have ... cheated on her," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "...a few times."

"Yeah," Homestar noted. "I could see that. Maybe you did date her." It seemed to take a second for his conscience to kick in. "Oh, but that wasn't very nice. No wonder she doesn't like you."

"Not my fault a way hotter girl wanted to kiss me," he shrugged.

"You are pretty fun to kiss," Homestar chuckled. "But it's still... kinda your fault for not at least breaking up with her beforehand. It's not like it's hard to break up with her. She's doin' it all the time." He sighed, frowning briefly.

Strong Bad shrugged. "Whatever. I didn't wanna date the chick, just wanted to make out with her. And her sister. Her sister was ... yes. That was fun a night." He snickered.

Homestar raised an eyebrow at him. "Must've been. I dunno, I always thought Marzipan's sister was boring. I don't think she likes me very much, either. Thank goodness she doesn't visit very often."

"...Marzipan has a sister?"

"Yeah- wait, I thought you said you made out with her?" Homestar narrowed his eyes at him.

"No, I made out with the girl's sister that I cheated on Marzipan with. So technically I cheated on ...two girls at once." He considered that. "Hell yes, I'm awesome."

"Ohhh..." Homestar nodded. "I got it. I'd be impressed but... that's still mean. So what'd you guys do all night that was so fun, anyway?"

"You rilly wanna know?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Well, yeah, maybe we can do something like it," Homestar replied. "Except for the making out. I know you said you didn't like kissin' guys."

"That's what I did, dumdum," Strong Bad snickered. He cupped Homestar's chin in his hand. "Technically, though ... you're not a guy."

"Y- yeah I am," Homestar huffed indignantly. "I'm just made different... what are you doing?"

"This," he murmured, pressing his lips to Homestar's. Weird or not, it was sort of ... fun to have someone completely head over heels for him. He'd never really been all the lucky with girls, Marzipan, her ex-best friend and her ex-best friend's sister aside. And despite Homestar's protests, Strong Bad was starting to think of him as less of a guy and more of ... a non-guy in a guy body.

That wasn't gay. Much.

Once he got over processing the fact that Strong Bad was actually kissing him, Homestar returned it eagerly. If there was any doubt as to whether androids could truly enjoy themselves while making out, well, Homestar decided he'd proven that wrong. Not that he really had any way to prove it to anybody that he could think of. But who cared?

One nice thing about his condition was that breathing was more of a formality and a cover for his inhuman nature, so the kiss ended when Strong Bad broke it.

Strong Bad chuckled, panting slightly. "N-not bad," he muttered, smirking to himself. His eyes flicked up to Homestar, and his smirk grew into a grin. Okay, this was ... going to be a lot more fun then he initially thought. A robot helping him steal cash and a more-than-willing make-out partner? Double-score. He felt a little bad for taking advantage of him like this, but he was a robot, right?

Robots couldn't _love_. Not really. This was the most Homestar could hope for, wasn't it? Yes. Right. Okay. He kissed him again, this time on the cheek. There was a mild electric shock when he did it which was ... pleasant, in a weird way. He briefly wondered if Marzipan ever noticed it. "I should ... I should get to bed. Um. You can sleep down here, I guess. I don't know if you sleep, though. I mean, I guess you do...?"

"Yes," Homestar sighed, rolling his eyes but smiling at him anyway. "I have to get at least four hours for maintenance and stuff to run otherwise I'm all weird the next day."

"Like a computer left on too long..." He snapped his fingers. "Makes sense. The lappie overheats sometimes. Well, g'night. Oh..."

He grabbed his shirt and pulled him forward. "You tell _anyone_ I kissed you, I'm turning you into scrap metal. Got it?"

"Gotcha. I won't say a word as long as you keep your promise," Homestar chuckled. He leaned a little further forward to peck Strong Bad on the forehead. "Night," he grinned.

Strong Bad rolled his eyes. "Dork," he muttered, stumbling a little as he got up but making it up the stairs just fine. He'd probably regret this in the morning, but it wasn't like he _slept_ with the guy. It was just a little kissing. No big deal.

At least, it wasn't a big deal until he woke up and halfway through brushing his teeth he remembered making out with Homestar Runner on his living room couch. Then it was a big deal. A huge deal. The hugest of all deals.

He spit out his frothy toothpaste and stared at his reflection, aghast. He went from barely tolerating him to locking lips with him in less than 24 hours. How the hell did that happen? He wiped his mouth and huffed, glaring at his reflection. This ... this had to be nipped in the bud.

He didn't wanna think about what would happen if Homestar got comfortable with all this, thinking it was okay to just kiss him whenever he felt like. What if he did it in front of his brothers? Or _at work?_ Strong Bad blanched at the idea. He'd never live it down.

No. No, he had to draw the line in the sand. Make sure Homestar knew his boundaries. Kissing might be fun (_very fun, actually_), but Strong Bad needed to be sure that it was a controlled situation.

He huffed and ripped his mask off before he rushed downstairs. He tossed it on the table, right on top of Strong Sad's breakfast. "Yo stinkface, clean this in the next load of laundry. Is Homestar still here?"

Strong Sad frowned and lifted the mask off his cereal bowl with his spoon. "No, he's not. Do you mind? I'm trying to eat the most important meal of the day, here."

"Looking at you, I think you'll survive a few ... months without breakfast," he mused. He frowned. "He left already? It's not even ten. What the crap."

"He kind of had to. I think you got him in trouble. Homeschool stopped by early this morning while I was doing my tai chi exercises. I guess he'd been trying to get a hold of him all night, but his cell phone got left somewhere." Strong Sad paused to stir his cereal around, debating whether or not it was safe to eat still. Then he glanced up and gave Strong Bad an odd look. "Did you... not want him to leave?"

Strong Bad blinked, a bit flustered. "What? No, of course I wanted him to leave. I just needed to talk to him before I kicked him to the curb, that's all."

"Hm." Strong Sad didn't seem convinced, but he was already writing it off as some prank his brother had been hoping to pull and now couldn't without a victim. No doubt he'd be chosen as the replacement eventually. "I'm sure he's at home. You can probably call him or go over there if it's that important."

He considered it. "Yeah. It's no big deal I guess."

Twenty minutes later, Strong Bad found himself sitting by the phone, fingernails rapping against the table. He knew he was going to call Homestar. He quietly hoped that before he reached for the phone, someone else would call. Distract him. Spending all his time thinking about his new robotic companion was oddly frustrating.

He grabbed the phone and glared at it. "Ring already. Bubs, The Cheat, telemarketer, Marzipan, anyone."

The call never came, not five minutes later, not ten minutes later. He sighed angrily and dialed Homestar's house. Humiliating. What would he even say? _Hey Homeschool, can I borrow your robot for the day?_ He had his doubts that that would work.

The line rang five times before anyone picked up. Homeschool's voice echoed flatly in the reciever, sounding annoyed. "Hello?"

Strong Bad blinked. Didn't expect that. "Uh, h-hey." He cleared his throat, suddenly feeling ridiculous. Should have called Homestar's cell, in retrospect. "Is Homestar there?"

There was a pause. "I'm sorry but he's not available right now. He-"

In the background a voice- clearly Homestar's- interrupted him.

"Who is it?"

Homeschool sighed loudly. "Can I take a message? He's in the middle of something."

Strong Bad found himself tapping his fingers on the table angrily. "It'll take one second. Just lemme talk to him."

"This is Strong Bad, isn't it," Homeschool's voice dipped disapprovingly. "I assure you, now is not the best time for a prank phone call."

"It's not a prank call! Geez. Just let me talk to him."

Another pause. "Very well. Make it quick." There was some brief crackling as the handset was passed off.

"Hey~ Strong Bad!" Homestar greeted cheerily. "Oh, if this is about your box of Lucky Charms, I was hungry. Sorry."

"What? Augh, that's my breakfast you... nevermind. What are you doing today?" He inspected his nails boredly.

"Just getting some repai- Oh! I mean-" He cleared his throat and continued in a rehearsed manner, "I am sick. I can't leave the house. But maybe you could visit!"

"No," Homeschool snapped from somewhere in the background.

"Oorrrr not."

Strong Bad was moodily silent. "That sucks," he muttered neutrally, trying not to sound disappointed. He was a little annoyed that he was disappointed to begin with. "Well, if you feel better, call me or something. Let's uh..." He stumbled over the words. "...hang out. Or something."

"Really? Okay, I'll be over in a little while," Homestar replied happily. The last thing that could be heard before the line disconnected were the adamant protests of his caretaker.

He hung up the phone and slammed his head on the table. Great. Another day with Homestar. It was his own fault, though, wasn't it?

Why the hell did he invite him over? He lifted his head up, irritated. Maybe they could hit up another ATM. It'd be nice not to have to worry about rent for a while.

Sure enough, about 45 minutes later, the android in question arrived on the doorstep of the Strong household. He tried the knob first before having to knock. After the last time he'd randomly shown up in the house, Strong Sad had stopped trying to hide spare keys outside. Homestar always seemed to be able to locate them.

Strong Bad tensed up, but didn't move to get the door. "Strong Sad, door."

A moment later, Strong Sad came up from the basement, irritated as he grabbed the knob. "I'm doing your laundry and you can't even get the do... Homestar?" He blinked, and glanced back at his brother. "Uh. Hi. I guess. ... why are you here?"

"I'm hangin' out with Strong Bad," Homestar replied casually. He pushed past him into the house.

Strong Sad narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Again?"

"Yes, again. Not that it's any of your business," Strong Bad muttered, hopping up from his seat. "Sup, dork."

Homestar blinked rapidly at him, or more specifically his face. He'd only ever seen Strong Bad with his mask on, having never broken in on a rare laundry day. "Whoa. You sound just like Strong Bad."

He raised an eyebrow. "I ... am Strong Bad. Who else would I be?"

"Hmm, I dunno. Are you his sister?" Homestar guessed. "Or maybe a cousin... well, anyway. Nice to meet you but where's regular Strong Bad? I'm supposed to be hangin' out with him today."

"SISTER?" He growled and jabbed him in the chest. "I am STRONG BAD. What the crap is wrong with you today?"

"I don't think he's ever seen you without your mask," Strong Sad pointed out. Strong Bad's hands went to his face defensively. Crap. Forgot about that. "That's no excuse."

"Dang, you do a pretty good impression of him," Homestar noted. "He doesn't blush, though. Makes you look way too girly."

"That's really him," Strong Sad chuckled, earning him a nasty glare from his older brother. "What? It's not my fault. Blame mom."

"I blame mom everyday of my life," he sighed, irritated.

Homestar raised an eyebrow, glancing hesitantly between Strong Sad and this supposed Strong Bad. "...nah. Seriously?" He narrowed his eyes at Strong Bad for a moment before prodding him in the cheek. "What happened to your face?"

He waved his hand away. "My mask is in the washer. It's gotta get clean, you know."

"Weird," Homestar snorted, still staring at him. "...you're pretty," he observed after a moment, then decided it was time to move on to another topic. "So, what're we gonna do today?"

"I don't know what _you're_ doing, but I'm going to find an axe, hack you up and bury the pieces. I'm NOT pretty," Strong Bad growled.

"Umm, yeah you are. Also you'd need more than just an axe to hack me up. All that metal w-" he bit his lip, growing abruptly aware of Strong Sad's presence again. "Or muscle. I mean muscle."

Strong Bad snarled and grabbed his hand, dragging him to the basement. "Come on, you moron. Stop talking before you hurt yourself."

Strong Sad just sent them an odd glance as they left. "Start the dryer," he called after them before heading back up to his room.

Homestar followed without protest about the rough treatment, his eyes on the stairs to keep from tripping. He looked over his shoulder briefly. "Why d-"

At that point his foot slipped of the third stair from the bottom and he fell forward.

He took Strong Bad down with him. He groaned, seeing stars for a few seconds thanks to hitting the floor so hard and the deceptively heavy robot on top of him. He shook his head, and sighed angrily. "Homestar, get offa me."

"Sorry," Homestar grinned sheepishly and pushed himself to his feet with ease. He reached out and casually yanked Strong Bad into a standing position as well with one hand, keeping a grip to steady him.

Strong Bad shook his head again, still dizzy from impact. "You're so friggen clumsy."

"I know. Homeschool's still workin' on that. Plus I had a tuneup this morning. That always messes me up worse," Homestar replied, frowning briefly. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine. You're... you're way heavier than you look," he said, walking over to the washer. He inspected the wet clothes and found his mask, eyes narrowed. Couldn't wear it like that. Dammit, he'd have to go a little while longer without it. He tossed it in the dryer with the other things.

Homestar leaned against the dryer and watched him, unwilling to come in contact with the damp clothes. "So why'd you have to wash your face, anyway? Did you spill on it?"

"I wash it once a week. I sweat and stuff, man," he shrugged. "No girls like a smelly dude, unless he smells like ... really expensive body spray. That's okay. But a sweaty mask smell is not okay."

"Once a week? Really?" Homesetar blinked. "Wow, I didn't know fleshy people were so dirty." He shifted his position and tapped his fingers on the dryer. "Maybe if you wore it less you wouldn't have to wash it so much. Or just stop sweating on it."

He raised an eyebrow at him. "I can't just stop sweating. That's not an option. Neither is wearing it less."

"Why not? You just turn it off or put the mask away in your room when you're not gonna use it. It's not like your other face is ugly or anything," he shrugged. "I'm still trying to decide which one I like better though. The cute one is weird but... nice. But I did like regular you."

"I can't just TURN OFF sweating, it's a natural reaction," Strong Bad snapped. "Humans don't have off buttons. And I'm not cute. Kittens are cute. Puppies are cute. I'm not cute."

"Cute, pretty, hot, whatever. Same difference." Homestar waved a hand and then thumbed to himself. "I don't have an off button either," he continued indignantly. "But it's your body. You don't have some kinda backup system for when you start leaking?"

"...no. No, humans don't ..." He looked away, unable to concentrate on his response. Frick, he missed his mask. He hated turning red for everyone to see. Stupid mom and her stupid face and her stupid ... blood that always rushed straight to the stupid face. "We don't. We're not leaking. Sweating's im...important. Did you say hot?"

"Did I?" Homestar paused to consider it. "Yeah, I probably did. You are sorta hot. But anyway, I don't get why sweating is so important. It just seems like a waste of body juices. Since you guys need so much water to work properly, you know... maybe you should get an upgrade and fix that."

Strong Bad focused on his explanation rather than how ... strangely flattered he was. "Sweating cools us down. Like ... like a fan in a computer. We overheat we die, so we sweat so we ... so we don't. Humans don't get upgrades.

"Oh. That sucks. I was gonna say maybe you should fix your face, too. You keep blushing for no reason," Homestar noted. "I guess that's one more good thing about being a robot."

He snorted angrily. "Yeah, I guess it is," he muttered, trying not to sound jealous. He hit the button on the dryer. "Anyway, I need to talk to you about something. A lot of somethings, actually."

Homestar stopped leaning once the machine had been turned on and straightened his hat as he stood there instead. "Oh man, I'm not in trouble with you, too, am I? I already got yelled at today by Homeschool so seriously, you don't have to do it again."

"You're not in trouble," he chuckled. "I just need to go over some ... some rules. Important ones."

"Oh. Okay, then." He hardly sounded excited about that prospect, either, but it beat getting reamed out for losing one's cellphone and not going home the night before during a rainstorm.

"So." Strong Bad sat down on the couch and cleared his throat. "About last night. And really, the whole day. But mostly that last part."

"That was the best part," Homestar observed cheerfully as he sat down beside him.

"And that's what we need to talk about. I need to make sure you completely understand that that isn't like ... you can't just do that whenever you want. I mean, sure it's fun and stuff and I'm not completely sick to my stomach, but you _do_ know that if you ever try to anything like that without my permission I'm going to cut your robo-life short, right?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at him. "I'll stick some magnets to your head and throw you in the bathtub. Swear to god."

Homestar winced at the threat. "Um, okay, I guess." He was quiet for a second. "Seems kinda harsh for something like that..."

"It's not," he insisted. "Not at all. You need to not ever ever pull that crap on me when I'm unprepared. It's not cool."

"Got it." Homestar nodded. "Always ask permission. I can do that."

Strong Bad rapped his nails on his knee. "You sure? You're not gonna randomly kiss me at the office or anything, like you did before we went to the diner or in the kitchen last night? Swear?"

"Of course. Anyway, that one outside the diner wasn't a real kiss. But I promise." Homestar made an 'x' motion over his chest.

"It was real enough," Strong Bad huffed. He glanced at where he 'x'd his chest. "Did Homeschool sew your chest up?"

"Yep." He lifted up his shirt to display his repair. "I told him I tripped on a shovel."

Strong Bad raised an eyebrow. "You're clumsy enough that even I would believe that." He ran a hand over where the wound hand been. "Weird. It feels like real skin. You're even a little warm. He really did a good job."

Homestar giggled and pulled away a bit. "S...still not friggen waterproof. It's not perfect." He pressed his fingers to his chest and removed them. Where normal skin might have gone slightly pink at extended contact, his remained the same pale shade. "Eh well. At least I don't leak all over my clothes to keep from dying of overheating."

"Well, excuse me for having normal bodily functions," Strong Bad huffed, pulling his hand away. "You're the weird one here, not me." He looked him over, eyebrow raised. "I wonder why he made you a boy. Most geeks in science fiction make their robots girl shaped. Maybe he's gay."

"No, he's not a very happy person. Well, he is... sort of. But mostly he's... snippy. And kind of boring," Homestar remarked as he flattened his shirt out.

"...what?" Strong Bad blinked a few times. "No, no, I mean gay as in he likes guys."

"Ohhh. No, I don't think he's any of that either. He seems to know a lot about dating girls. Or at least he's always telling me how I'm supposed to go about dating Marzi a lot. It's pretty annoying," Homestar snorted.

"Oh yeah, that's exactly who I would take pointers from. A nerd who has enough freetime to build his own robot." Strong Bad rolled his eyes. "Smooth. I don't think he's the best girl guru. You need someone who's been with an actual girl."

Homestar tapped his chin. "Wait, you've been with girls. You've even been with Marzipan before. I guess that makes you a girl guru."

"I guess," Strong Bad said, smirking. "Yeah. I guess I am. I'd help ya if I didn't think it was a hopeless case."

"Hopeless? Really? Dang, Homeschool won't be happy to hear that," Homestar frowned. "I tried to tell him Marzipan wasn't a very good girlfriend, but he never listens. She can't be very good at being a girlfriend if she's always dumping people."

"She only dumped me once," Strong Bad pointed out. "I don't think the problem's with her. It's you. You're ... you know."

Homestar just blinked at him. "I'm what?"

"I think it's obvious you're not into girls," Strong Bad snorted, amused. "You're gay. I still can't figure out why Homeschool programmed you to like me, though."

"But... he didn't." Homestar bit his lip. "He doesn't mess with that part of my program. It's meant to write itself as it goes and stuff." His shoulders sagged. "Aw man, I didn't think I was gay. Are you sure? That doesn't mean I'm broken, right? Because I really don't want to be rebuilt."

He raised an eyebrow at him. "No, you're not broken. Y... you're just ... wait, so your weird little crush on me is just because ... he didn't program that, really?"

"Why would he program that? He wants me to be with Marzipan," Homestar replied. "Besides, I'm a learning robot. I'm supposed to program myself. I'm highly advanced," he added smugly. "Well, aside from the basic, automatic stuff. That's built-in."

"You're a learning robot, huh," Strong Bad mused. He tapped his chin. "Hmm. I can work with that." He smirked. "Allright, we're going out today. I'm gonna need you to hit another ATM, though. This time when I say 200? I mean 200."

"Hey, that last time I messed up was because it rained," Homestar defended. "So what do we need money for now?"

"Because I said so," he shrugged.

Homestar considered that response. "I don't know. That still seems like... cheating to me," he stated hesitantly.

"Cheating?" Strong Bad did his best innocent double-blink. "It's not cheating! It's gonna be taken anyway. Might as well be taken by us, right? It's not like I don't need it."

"Yeah but you have a job for that," Homestar pointed out. "We haven't even spent that other money yet, have we?"

"I paid my rent," Strong Bad frowned. "Aw c'mon. 200 dollars isn't even that much in the grand scheme of things."

"All right, fine. I'll do one more. But that's it," Homestar agreed firmly. "After that you gotta do them yourself because I don't want to get in trouble."

"Great! As soon as my mask is out of the dryer we'll roll," Strong Bad said, jumping up to turn on the television. He plopped back down on the couch. "Augh, not Marshmallow's Last Stand though, too much of that place gives me a headache. Guess we can hit McDonald's. Pretty sure they have an ATM."

"What's wrong with Marshmallow's? That place is awesome," Homestar frowned, taking a seat beside him. He glanced briefly at the TV before reaching for the remote.

Strong Bad wrinkled his nose. "Nothing's wrong with it, I guess. But I know the servers and stuff there. Can't be seen going there with _you_ every other day. That's just ... it looks bad, man."

"Ohh." Homestar focused on flipping channels for a bit. "Yeah, I think they like me there a lot better than you. Stacy does anyway. She told me that you creep her out big time, but I told her you were just kind of weird but mostly harmless."

"What? Stacy's a..." He sighed angrily and slapped his forehead. "Dammit, that's like TWO MONTHS of the best flirting man has to offer _wasted_ on a not-interested hottie. Great, just great."

"Well if you weren't flirting with her she probably wouldn't have gotten creeped out," Homestar noted.

"But the only reason I've been going there was to flirt with her," he countered.

"Maybe you shoulda gone for the food instead. That's what I go for." Homestar settled on a channel and shifted his position so he was half laying on the couch with his feet hanging over the arm rest. TV was better sideways.

"I've been single for three years. I have more important things on my mind than food," Strong Bad snorted.

"Like what?" Homestar inquired distantly, his attention draining away in favor of some animated pirate cats on the TV screen.

"Girls, mostly. Girls and that stupid stupid promotion I'm never going to get even though I totally deserve it. But mostly girls."

"Yeah you're lackin' the people skills for both of those probably," Homestar remarked. He dangled his arm off the edge of the couch and picked absently at the carpet. "I think I'll get chicken nuggets for lunch."

Strong Bad whipped around to glare at him. "I have plenty of people skills," he snapped.

Homestar tilted his head slightly to look up at him. "That's not what it said on your last three performance reports at work."

He reddened unintentionally. "What the crap are you doing looking at my performance reports?"

"I was... um. Typing them." He blinked. "Up. Typing them up. For Pom Pom."

"That's confidential stuff," he huffed, looking away. "...what else did it say?"

Homestar was quiet for a moment and seemed to be thinking. "Strong Bad's level of immaturity and disregard for authority makes him a poor candidate for any form of managerial or otherwise supervisory position."

Strong Bad's jaw dropped. "IMMATURE? ME? I'm plenty mature! I got more maturity in one pinky than any of those pricks have in their whole friggen body!" he flared, jumping to his feet. "AUGH. Guess I'm going job hunting. I'm clearly NOT getting anywhere with those geeks spreading lies ab-" He stopped, and looked back at Homestar.

"Do you always type up the reports?"

"Yup. Every year," Homestar replied.

"We have another one in a month," he mused, tapping his chin. He smirked deviously. "Homestar, you're going to do a little creative writing for me."

"But I'm not good at creative writing. My grammar is awful," Homestar protested. "And full of Gary Sues."

"Not that kind of creative writing. Instead of all that bad stuff about me being immature, you'll just type in that I'm the most loyal, trustworthy candidate for promotion ever," he grinned, sitting down next to him. "That way, I get the promotion I deserve."

"So... you want me to lie?" Homestar raised an eyebrow at him.

"No, I want you to correct their _gross_ underestimate of my talents."

"You're not very loyal. You made out with those two girls and cheated on Marzipan," Homestar pointed out. "Yanno, lying on a report might not be such a good career move for me. I just got another raise and stuff. Pom Pom might take it the wrong way."

"...I haven't gotten a raise in three years." He frowned, considering that. He shook his head, dismissing it. "Come on, man! It's not gonna hurt anyone, and no one will ever know."

"This seems like cheating again," Homestar observed warily. "Plus you'll know and I'll know."

"It's not cheating. It's correcting grievous errors. It's not my fault their horrible at judging character," he frowned. He hesitated. Stupid learning program and its stupid conscience. What fun was there of having a super powerful robot for a best friend if it didn't do anything for you?

He blinked. Then again, Homestar didn't exactly think of Strong Bad as a _friend_, did he? No, the little nerd always had that bizarro crush on him since day one. He looked away. Morally, it was wrong to abuse those feelings, but ... robots didn't have feelings, right? Not really.

There was also the issue of whether or not he could stomach it. He grimaced. Going another year without a raise or a promotion seemed like a worse fate. He cleared his throat. Time to put some of that supposedly world-class flirting to good use.

He leaned towards him and smirked, raising an eyebrow. "Besides, it'll be our little secret. No one has to know but me..." He leaned a bit closer- or rather, a lot closer. "...and you. And you won't tell anyone, right?"

The corner of Homestar's mouth twitched nervously. Had he been built with the capability to blush, he would have been doing so. "N...nah. No. I mean... nope." He bit his lip to keep from grinning giddily at their close proximity.

Strong Bad's smirk grew. Oh _man_ he was too easy. It would almost be cute if it wasn't so pathetic.

"Of course you won't," he mused, pulling away slightly. "We're best friends now after all." He looked down at his nails. "With certain benefits."

It took a second for Homestar to figure out what benefits he was referring to. "Oh right you mean the kissing. Hey, um... by the way, can we maybe like... do that again?" Suddenly the TV wasn't so interesting with such prospects available.

There wasn't a response right away. Kissing? Kissing _Homestar? Sober?_

Strong Bad frowned. That didn't exactly sound appealing. Still, if he wanted to make sure the lovesick dip played along, he kinda had to, didn't he? "Uh." He blinked a few times. "Yeah, I ... I guess. Sure. Gimme one second..." He got up from the couch and dashed to the other room, looking up the stairwell. He listened for movement and glared at the dryer. Stupid thing was making it very hard to hear if someone was coming. That would be a problem. He glanced back at the couch, where Homestar just stared at him with the biggest, most hopeful puppy dog eyes he'd ever seen.

He sighed, smiling despite himself. Okay, so he was kinda cute. Maybe, if he played his cards right, he could ease into a relationship with Homeschool and convince him to make Homestar more ... _female_ shaped in the future. Best upgrade ever. He went back to the couch and sat down next to him, leaning into a kiss before he even hit the cushion.

Homestar immediately wrapped his arms around him and leaned right back into it, momentarily interrupting it with an accidental giggle. Who knew how many of these Strong Bad was planning on giving away; he was going to make the most of it

Strong Bad grabbed his arms and eased them away, trying hard not to break the kiss in the process. It was a little hard, listening for his brothers or The Cheat while suppressing the gag reflex he knew he should have but oddly didn't. Not to mention focusing on kissing Homestar back. That was taking up a lot of his concentration.

Tragic, really- for him anyway, because Homestar could care less who caught him kissing who. He didn't even look up when he his keenly tuned hearing picked up footsteps on the stairs that had gone undetected by his quite preoccupied, supposed best friend. With benefits.

Strong Sad stopped halfway down to gape. "What on earth...?"

Strong Bad pulled away jumping to his feet. He bumped into the television set in an attempt to put as much distance between him and Homestar possible. He whipped around and grabbed it to keep it from collapsing backwards.

"D-don't you KNOCK?" he demanded, face flushed completely red. He glared at Homestar. "Why didn't you say something?"

"Um. I didn't know I was supposed to," Homestar shrugged.

Strong Sad was still displaying an expression of startled disgust. "There's nothing to knock on. Jeez, next time get a room." He started to leave before he remembered why he'd come down in the first place. "Oh, by the way somebody from the sheriff's office called for you. And I think I'm gonna leave now."

Strong Bad crashed back down on the couch, visibly mortified. Great. Perfect. Awesome. His baby brother now thought he was gay. But no, not just gay. Gay and having some sort of secret fling with Homestar Runner.

He sunk lower into the cushions with a groan, burying his beet red face in his hands. "I'm gonna go die now if that's okay with you."

Homestar frowned. "No, it's not okay." He was quiet for a second. Had he done something wrong? It sure seemed like he had at least in part, and now Strong Bad was apparently paying for it. "Sorry," he muttered, even if he didn't really know for sure what it was he was apologizing for. He just found that saying that sometimes helped diffuse awkward situations with Marzipan in the past.

"You should be," he muttered from behind his hands. He eventually found the courage to pull them away completely.

"Why do these things happen to me. WHY. I finally find a sweet gig and now my brother thinks I'm ..." He found himself unable to say the word, knowing it would come out insulting. Homestar already had a loose understanding of the word 'gay'. He didn't need Strong Bad to make it sound like something negative. "... just augh. I can't believe this. Okay, from now on? Use that super hearing of yours to listen for people. If you're not allowed to _tell_ people we're playing tonsil hockey then people ... well, they obviously can't catch us doing it, either. That's ... that's not cool."

Homestar saluted him. "I gotcha." He was quite thankful Strong Bad hadn't called off the whole arrangement due to the intrusion. That would have really sucked. He could handle operating as an early warning system easy enough. "Next time I'll let you know."

Strong Bad sighed, picking up the remote. "Of course, it's not going to matter since I'm never leaving this basement again."

Homestar stared at him. "Wow, really? ...I guess I'll have to bring you food from the kitchen, huh." He wrinkled his nose at another passing thought. "...but there's no bathroom down here. Maybe you should pick a different house level."

"I can never face Strong Sad ever again," he muttered in response, face flushing again. He slapped a hand to his face. "JEEZ. Why HIM. I could have dealt with Strong Mad but ... augh."

Homestar smiled to himself. Strong Bad was really cute when he blushed like that. "I don't get what the big deal is. Strong Sad didn't seem mad about it or anything."

"It's embarrassing. Are you just not PROGRAMMED with that emotion?" he asked, pulling his hand away. "Guess not. Nothing seems to phase you."

"Well, now that you mention it... I'm a little self-conscious about my wrists. I think Homeschool built 'em uneven because this one seems like it's a centimeter wider than the other one..." Homestar noted, holding his hands out in front of him. "Buuut, other than that... and I guess maybe like, if my insides are showing. Can't say I let much bother me. Not like you. You worry WAY too much."

"I worry as much as I have to. I have a reputation to live up to- one that doesn't involve kissing boys in my b-basement." He groaned and slapped his forehead. "AUGH."

"Pff, there's your problem. I don't worry about reputations and pretty much everybody likes me anyway," Homestar remarked with a nod. Then he blinked. "Oh, except you maybe. Until recently." He tapped his chin thoughtfully and then shrugged. Whatever the reason, he wasn't complaining.

He glanced at him, eyebrow raised. "Who says I like you? You're annoying as hell."

"I did, I guess. You started hanging out with me on purpose and said we were friends so I figured that means you like me now. Plus you aren't grossed out by kissing with me anymore." Homestar grinned smugly. "I'm gettin' better at it, aren't I?"

There came that stupid blush again. Frick, how long did the dryer have to take, anyway? "I am so not dignifying that with a comment."

"I'll just take that as a yes then." Homestar smirked. He heard the dryer cycle start to wind down and decided to turn up the TV to cover for it. A few extra minutes couldn't hurt.

"Take it however you want," he muttered, glaring at the TV. He crossed his arms over his chest, visibly bitter. "Nerd."

Homestar glanced over at him briefly and then turned his gaze back to the uninteresting programming he wasn't really paying attention to. "Yanno if you want another one, Strong Sad's up in his room. Just sayin'."

Strong Bad didn't respond right away, gaze flicking to the ceiling. "You sure?"

Homestar cocked his head to the side for a second. "Yeah. He walks loud so I know he hasn't left it since he went in."

He snickered. "He is pretty ... noticeable," he admitted, tapping his chin in thought. After a few seconds he threw his arms around Homestar's neck and started kissing him. To hell with it. He was already caught once. Strong Sad was easy enough to threaten into silence. His ego was bruised slightly, but a little makeout practice could cure that. Homestar seemed to think he was amazing at _everything_ which was nice. Weird, but ... nice.

The kiss was received eagerly again- this time destined for no interruptions. Homestar wrapped one arm around Strong Bad, bringing the other hand up to brush back his hair. In the absence of his mask, some of the strands had swept forward and posed a teasing annoyance to their business. Once that had been amended he slipped the other arm around him.

This lasted until the dryer went off a few minutes later. Strong Bad pushed Homestar away and cleared his throat. "Gotta get my mask, then we can go. A...and stuff, so yeah."

"Aw but I was just gettin' used to you without a mask," Homestar chuckled. "I have decided that you look nice without it. I think it's your hair. And when your face goes red, that too." He blinked at him and grinned. "Like now."

Despite Strong Bad's wishes, he went redder. "I wasn't looking for your approval," he huffed, getting up. "Jeez. Be right back."

Homestar turned to watch him go. "I just meant you don't have to wear it," he said after him. "Ya look fine." He turned back around. "Maybe the girl at the diner wouldn't recognize you without it. We could go back to Marshmallow's for lunch, then..."

Strong Bad came back, still tying up the strings on his mask. "I happen to like wearing it," he said tightening the knot. He put his hands on his hips and sighed. "I don't like ... okay, I ..."

He hesitated before shaking his head. "One sec, I'll be right back." He made a dash up the stairs and didn't return until a few minutes later, a frame in his hand. He tossed it on the couch. "That would be a picture of my mother. Notice anything?"

"Wow." Homestar regarded the picture. "She's wearing a nice blouse. I think she shoulda gone with a solid color, though. Much more flattering."

He slapped his forehead. "No you moron. The face."

"Oh. I thought it seemed kinda familiar..." He looked puzzled. "Why would you dress up as your mom for pictures? That's just creepy."

"Oh my god how stupid are you." He sighed angrily. "I look just like my mom. Like ... _exactly_ like her, it's stupidly annoying. She left us when I was 13. She had to go 'find herself' or whatever. My dad never really got over it. He'd get drunk and beat the shit outta me. Tried to tell him I wasn't Gladys but I don't think he really cared. So, I started wearing a mask." He shrugged. "Got beat up less. I mean, he still beat me when I got in trouble and stuff but he never came into my room in the middle of the night with the belt again."

Homestar looked back at the picture. He couldn't really think of anything to say to that for a while so he just stared at it curiously before handing it over. "I didn't even know you had a mom," he admitted. "Or parents. Now I'm glad I don't have 'em, your dad sounds like a jerk."

"Everyone has parents. Well, almost everyone. They had to have 'em at one point, anyway," he replied. "Except you. Because you're a robot. But it's not so bad. We still get letters from mom. She keeps us updated on our sisters. Well, half sisters. Whatever. I've never met them because they live in California, but they send us pictures they drew and we give them Christmas cards. Fun. Like having a couple of nieces. Only ... they're sisters. They're like WAY younger than me though."

He shrugged. "My dad's not so bad. He was just ... drunk and miserable. Just wish I hadn't gotten the lion's share of that stuff, yanno?"

"Yeah I guess. But still... " He trailed off in favor of a more cheerful train of thought. "Little sisters would be fun. All I got is Homeschool. He's super boring. And he's not a sister either. More like... " Homestar blinked. "Actually I dunno what he's like. I just call him my cousin because he tells me to."

"I guess he's ... your dad? Sort of?" Strong Bad shook his head. "He made you, so ... I dunno what he'd be."

Homestar shrugged. "Me either. All I know is he repairs me and does my upgrades and likes to tell me what to do. He said this morning that I shouldn't hang out with you so much. I don't think he likes you. ...well actually he's been saying that for years, but he was pretty mad when I didn't go home yesterday."

Strong Bad raised an annoyed eyebrow. "I don't care if Homeschool likes me. He's a creepy little nerd. But if he tells you not to hang out with me, shouldn't you like ... listen?"

Homestar just looked at him blankly. "Why?"

"Well, he's ... _sort of_ like your dad. If I ran off to hang out with someone my dad didn't want me seeing, I'd have been grounded forever. Hell, I got Marzi grounded almost every other weekend."

"Oh. Yeah he's reprogrammed me a coupla times, but that was..." Homestar hesitated. "Um. That was... due to some stuff I don't wanna talk about. I guess he could shut me down, but I'm not too worried about it. He woulda done it forever ago if hanging out with you was so bad."

He frowned. Reprogrammed? That sounded ... unpleasant, to say the least. "Oh. Well, he probably doesn't realize you've got a super lame crush on me yet. I wouldn't let him figure that out if I were you. That sounds reprogram worthy."

Homestar found himself grateful again that his construction didn't allow for blushing. "I n-never said I had a crush on you. I just like y...ou." He smiled nervously and forced himself to look away. "It's not the same thing." At least, he hoped it wasn't. He didn't think Strong Bad would tolerate it so well if it was. He wasn't into that, after all.

"You didn't need to tell me," Strong Bad laughed. "I'm not dumb. You've always followed me around and practically begged for my attention. I just figured you couldn't stand that someone didn't like you, and you wanted me to be your best friend like ... out of spite. Didn't realize it was because you have the hots for me. Can't say I blame you, I'm really awesome."

"Oh. You... don't care? I thought for sure you'd get mad at me. More than usual." Homestar tapped his fingers together. "It's that obvious, huh?"

"Obvious? That's an understatement. No, see, obvious is like ... a tattoo on someone's wrist. You're more like ... the Great Wall of China. That's visible _from space_." He shrugged casually. "And I don't care if you like me. Whatever, man. I'm not your dad. I can't tell you who you can and cannot like. Just as long as you don't get the idea that anything's ever gonna happen between us, it's cool."

"You mean like dating? Yeah I'm okay with skipping that. I'm good as-is with you not hating me and sometimes making out with me. It's already way better than dating Marzipan was," Homestar remarked, pushing himself up off the couch and stretching. There was a clicking noise in his elbow as he did so and he paused to examine it before shrugging it off. He smiled briefly at Strong Bad. "Ready to go when you are."

Strong Bad raised an eyebrow. He was weird. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, let's go."

He gave his baby brother a nasty glare on their way out the door. "We'll be back later."

"Have fun," Strong Sad muttered, shaking his head as he passed them on his way to the kitchen.

"We will~! Seeya," Homestar grinned with a little wave at him as he pulled the front door closed behind them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Prototype 0.4**

**A collaborative fanfiction by Jenny (chakramchucker) and Mu (badpirate)**

Strong Bad's glare migrated to Homestar. "Do you have to be such a nerd? What is with the singsong crap?"

Homestar pouted and folded his arms over his chest. "I'm not a nerd. I was just saying goodbye."

"You _sang_ your goodbye," he corrected.

"Yeah, so? I was being cheerful. Anyway, singing is fun," Homestar countered. "And I'm pretty good at it, so there."

He rolled his eyes. "You're good at _everything_, that so doesn't count."

"I'm not good at swimming."

"That's only because you can't or you'll like ... I don't even know. Everything you can do you're amazing at. You're a better typist than I am, you're faster than I am, you're a great kisser, you're awesome at video games..." he sighed angrily. "Everything everyone else has to work for you had handed to you."

Homestar fell silent for a few seconds, recalling the conversation he'd had with Strong Sad the day before. Apparently the mopey guy had a point. "Well, but- you did beat me a couple times last night. So I don't win all the time. Anyway, I'd be glad to help you get better at any of those things if you wanted."

"You let me win."

"I- no. No I didn't." He bit his lip. "I might've evened it out a bit..."

"I'm not stupid. I can tell when people are holding back," he sighed, glancing at him. "If I'm going to win against you, I want to really win. I'd rather you didn't 'even it out' or whatever."

Homestar rubbed the back of his neck. "Heh, sorry. I just don't want you to stop playing against me. It's not fun by myself. The games can't beat me either but at least you're good company. Those consoles have no sense of humor," he frowned.

"You know, there are other people in the world. You don't always have to bug me," he pointed out.

"Yeah, I guess... but you're the most fun so I think I'll stick with you," Homestar concluded. "Besides, you know my secret," he smirked.

"Augh. That is so not a burden I wanna carry, you know," he huffed. "You should make other friends. Only having one is ... it's weird. And suspicious. People are going to start talking."

"Psh, I have tons of friends, what're you talkin' about?" Homestar snorted. "I have um... Marzipan, and Pom Pom... and you... and that guy I say hi to at work..." He shrugged, figuring that was enough to prove his point. "I don't wanna tell them I'm a robot though. They might get scared of me or try to make me do all their work for them. I just wanna be a regular guy."

Strong Bad felt a very small, almost negligible twinge of guilt. "Hahah yeah. Th-they might. Marzipan probably wouldn't, but I still wouldn't ... advertise that. Besides, it's not like anyone'll believe you."

"You did. I had to lift you up to prove it but after that you believed me," he pointed out.

"I was already half-convinced anyway," he reminded him. "I was a working theory for a little bit before I actually asked you. That's... sort of why I called you to hang out."

Homestar was visibly disappointed. "Ah. That makes sense. You never invite me over... unless you're about to pull a prank on me." He appeared to cheer up and added, "But today you already know I'm a robot, so we're hanging out for real. Cool."

He grinned and put his arm around Strong Bad's shoulder.

Strong Bad shoved it away. "Okay, that? That's not okay."

Homestar frowned, holding the rejected arm sheepishly to his side. "Why not?"

"That's not something friends do," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's something boyfriends do."

"Who knew there were so many friggen rules," Homestar muttered. He briefly considered mentioning that he was pretty sure boyfriends kissed, too, but he didn't want to risk giving Strong Bad a reason to stop making out with him so he let it go.

"I do. So just ... double-check with me if you have any doubts, okay?" he said, pushing the door open to Marshmallow's Last Stand. He sighed. "Yeah I know I said McDonald's. But you seem to like this stupid place so whatever."

"Can do." Homestar eagerly took a seat at the same booth they'd chosen the day before. Their waitress showed up a moment later and set them up with silverware bundles and menus.

"Back already, eh?" The girl smiled. "Can I get you some drinks to start out with?"

"Mountain Dew," Homestar replied automatically.

"That much Mountain Dew can't be good for you," he sighed and pawed through the menu. "Jack and coke. Light on that ...coke part."

"Sure thing. I'll just need to see some ID," She held out her hand.

Homestar raised his eyebrow at him. "Kinda early to be drinking already."

"It's happy hour somewhere," he chuckled, pulling out his wallet. He flipped through it and held the ID out. "Here ya go."

She squinted at the card briefly. "Thanks... Bellamy. I'll be right back with your drinks, guys." With that, she swept away and left Homestar staring in her wake.

"She got your name wrong," he snorted.

Strong Bad reddened underneath his mask as he put his ID away. "Sadly, she didn't."

Homestar turned his gaze back to him and blinked. "You mean Strong Bad isn't your real name?"

"...why the hell would Strong Bad be my real name?"

"Um, because Bellamy's not a real name. And everyone calls you Strong Bad," Homestar replied.

"People call me Strong Bad because I told them to call me Strong Bad. Bellamy _is_ a real name, it's just the worst name in the history of mankind." He sighed dejectedly. "So not fair. My dad wanted to name me Bartholomew, but nooo. Mom wanted me to be _Bellamy_, after my _grandmother_."

He gagged. "Not that Bartholomew's like ... way better but at least it's not a girl's name."

"Yeah, really. It does sound pretty girly," Homestar admitted. "But it suits you better than Barthomal... um, Bart. And it's easier to say," he frowned. "I'm glad I don't have two names, that must be confusing."

"It doesn't suit me. At all," he snapped. "It's awful and I hate it."

"Oh I dunno, you're quirky and you got like, a girly face so it does kind... of suit..." he trailed off at the look he got from Strong Bad. "It... well, it's not perfect." He cleared his throat and glanced away. "Oh hey look, our drinks are here."

Strong Bad suppressed a growl. "You're lucky there's a witness here, bucko," he muttered, taking his drink. The waitress chuckled.

"We ready to order boys?" Strong Bad nodded. "Chicken fingers, I guess. Or ... I dunno, what are you getting?"

Homestar glanced down at his menu. He hadn't even opened it yet. "I think I'll get the belgian waffles," he decided, pushing the menu to the end of the table. He almost always ordered breakfast foods due to their high sugar content. Plus he got access to syrup that way.

"Augh," Strong Bad gagged. "Yes, Chicken fingers. I can only handle so much sugar at one time."

"Okay. So, belgian waffles and chicken fingers," she read back. She tapped her chin with her pen. "Got it. I'll leave you two alone now."

Strong Bad glared at her as she left. "...we need to make sure we don't get her anymore."

"She's nice, though," Homestar observed, sipping his soda. "And she's never gotten my order wrong before."

"Yeah, real nice," he muttered, snorting. "She's probably laughing about my name in the back. Augh. I hate getting carded. Not to mention the way she said alone. Jesus why does everyone think we're on a date or something? Guys hang out. They do. That's not weird."

"I think you're being a little paranoid," Homestar chuckled, poking ice cubes around with his straw. "It's not like she saw us making out."

"Which makes it _worse_. At least if she did there'd be a logical reason. She's just assuming," he huffed. "...not that us making out means this is a date so yeah no."

Homestar rolled his eyes. "I know, you've told me like five times now. Or actually twice. Two times. But yeah, who cares what she thinks anyway. She's just some girl."

"I care what people think. What people think is very important to me, and it should be important to you, too. The way they treat you tells you what kind of person you are," Strong Bad scolded. "People treat you like a little kid because you're stupidly trusting and cheerful all the freakin' time. Doesn't that bother you? Don't you want to be taken seriously?"

Homestar stared down at his soda, resting his chin on his hand. "It never bothered me before." He frowned and pinned an ice cube to the bottom of his glass with his straw before looking up again. "I still think I'd rather be happy than worry about what people think of me all the time."

"I can't be happy if people think I'm immature or as lame as my name is," he sighed, stirring his drink. He was currently glaring at it. "...I'm ... I'm glad you like me, though. It's nice that you don't think I'm like ... super weird. I get a lot of looks because of my mask and the whole... no shirt thing. You never thought that was weird, though."

"It'd take a lot to weird me out," Homestar admitted. "Buuut you being hot without a shirt helps... even if you kinda need to work out more." He shrugged and sipped more soda.

Strong Bad blinked a few times. "...uh...th-thanks I guess. You should ... probably n-not mention that in public, though. The 'me being hot' thing. Or the having to work out thing, because that's no true anyway." He focused on his drink and not the blush that was creeping across his face. He couldn't think of a compliment to give him back.

"Just bein' honest," Homestar muttered, pushing his empty glass away. He paused to glare at the puddle of condensation it left behind, then grabbed a napkin and dropped it over the damp spot.

Strong Bad snickered. His little fear of water was kind of stupidly adorable, like a kitten afraid to get wet. "It's just a _drop_. You'll be fine." He shook his head.

The rest of the not-date went smoothly. Strong Bad ended up not needing money from the ATM, so Homestar didn't have to overload the machine. Strong Bad walked him halfway home, deciding it was probably best if he didn't get anywhere near Homeschool or his house. He went back to his house in a fairly good mood.

Strong Bad liked staying home and playing video games as much as the next guy, but it was nice to go out and have fun once in a while. He sighed, content. He hadn't been this happy since ...

Since he dated Marzipan. He stopped to think about what that meant but he shook his head, ridding himself of the possible answer. _No, Strong Bad. Just no. Don't even go down that road._

In the mean time, Strong Sad hadn't ventured from his room since hearing the door close. He decided to give it some time, not wanting to go down there and walk in on anything unpleasant. Once he'd determined Strong Bad had come home alone, he cautiously braved the outer household to peer downstairs.

His brother was watching TV. That was normal enough. Perhaps gay aliens hadn't replaced him after all. But then, he'd always been a little... weird. Maybe he just swung that way. _It's none of my business anyway_, Strong Sad concluded. _For all I know, it's just another plan to try to mess with me._

If it was, he was doing a damn good job of it.

With a sigh, he descended the stairs to raid the pantry. It was a good thing Strong Bad was eating out a lot, becaues their food supply was running a bit low. He retrieved the necessary supplies to make himself a peanut butter and banana sandwich- this consisted of their last jar of peanut butter- then started to go back upstairs. He paused and glanced back at his brother. His hesitant silence seemed to last forever.

"How'd it go?"

Strong Bad glanced at him. "How'd what go?"

"Your... " he faltered briefly. "-lunch with Homestar."

"There's no leftovers, if that's what you're wondering. And even if there was, they'd be mine."

"I don't care about the leftovers," Strong Sad said, rolling his eyes. "I meant... oh, nevermind. But now that you mention it, somebody needs to go to the grocery store soon. Maybe that should be the next place you guys go out to. I don't think you've been to the supermarket since you were ten."

Strong Bad blinked a few times. "Next time w...? No. Look, I know what it ... I know... it wasn't..." He found himself stammering. "We're not ... there's no 'going out'. We're _hanging_ out. Hanging. Going is... no there's an implication there I don't like. Hanging. It's hanging. And you can do your own dang food shopping."

Strong Sad raised a pale eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. "Whatever. I would buy my own food except I know you won't get yourself any and you'll start eating mine. Unless you plan to eat out all week. Honestly, I don't care what you two are doing as long as I don't have to walk in on anything else."

"What you walked in on wasn't _anything_," Strong Bad growled. "It... it was nothing. We're not doing anything."

"I'll try to keep telling myself that during the next few years' worth of therapy I'll be getting after this," Strong Sad muttered, turning to leave. "At least you know he's not an android now."

"He is too," Strong Bad grunted, annoyed.

"Uh huh. Androids don't have sex drives."

He furrowed his brow at that. Sex drive? No, even if androids _did_ have any sort of sexual desires, Homestar was a little too innocent for that. Whose to say he wasn't built like a Ken doll down there, anyway? He somehow doubted that Homeschool would bother making Homestar anatomically correct.

Still, Homestar seemed to think he was _hot_, and he knew for a fact that he was an android. "...says you. Have you ever met one and asked?"

"No," Strong Sad sighed, annoyed. "And neither have you. They don't exist yet because our level of technology doesn't allow for it. Even if they did exist, you can't program something that complex into a machine. At best maybe they could make it mimic the... actions." He snorted. "That'll be quite an industry once they figure that one out."

"I'm telling you, he's an android!" Strong Bad flared. "And he's not just mimicking the actions, he's-"

He hesitated. He's what? It's not like there were real feelings behind those kisses, were there?

"...he takes initiative," he said, settling for that. Homestar's little crush was convincing, but it was still a program. "But _fine_, don't believe me. I know what he is."

"Hey, I want to believe. I just happen to've done my homework," Strong Sad replied. "Man, someone needs to warn him again about your imagination."

He glared at him. "Whatever, man. He's totally a robot. Homeschool's just years ahead of his time or something."

"That's really doubtful." Strong Sad resumed climbing the stairs, calling over his shoulder when he got to the top,"When you do go out tomorrow, try to pick up some eggs on the way home. You used them all up making cookies for your non-boyfriend."

Strong Bad almost snapped the remote in half before he dashed up the steps and threw it at Strong Sad with all his might. He missed, still fuming after the door shut.

He avoided Homestar for a day or so after that, annoyed at himself for getting weirdly attached to him and annoyed at Homestar for being weirdly easy to attach to. It didn't last long. Homestar would follow him on his lunch run, coffee breaks, and his playing Gameboy out back break. After a while, Strong Bad just cracked and invited him out again to have lunch and hit up an ATM ... and eventually makeout in the basement.

That last activity was getting higher and higher on Strong Bad's priority list as the month went on, which weirded him out on a number of levels. Since discovering Homestar's android-ness, he'd read up on the subject. Sci-fi stories and actual scientific journals... they were all around the house, thanks to Strong Sad. He found himself a little distraught after a short story about the dangers of falling in love with androids, how they couldn't truly love you back. It put him in a foul mood for a few reasons.

One, because it had a point. Robots couldn't love. Not really, anyway. They could be programmed to mimic it, for sure. Just as humans could fake it. And two...

Because he was seriously starting to _like_ Homestar. It hit him like a tractor trailer truck one afternoon when Homestar _didn't_ call his house right after getting home from work like he usually did. He sat by the phone anxiously, nails rapping on the table until it _finally_ rang. But when he picked up he realized his heart was practically in his throat and he was stupidly happy to hear Homestar's idiotic excuse for why he hadn't called.

Now, two days since that rather upsetting realization, he was avoiding Homestar's call.

It wasn't a fool-proof plan against the fool in question, considering all Homestar had to do was cross the street once he realized no one was picking up. And naturally, that's exactly what he did.

Strong Sad was upstairs trying to study through all the ringing phones and now an unanswered door. Finally he got up and went out into the hall. "Are you going to get that?"

"No, I'm not. Just leave it," Strong Bad huffed, turning the volume up on the television.

"Ugh... at least tell him you're sick or something," Strong Sad complained over the noise before disappearing back into his room to get his iPod. Noise cancelling headphones were probably the best investment he'd ever made.

Strong Bad glared at the television as the doorbell rang again. Augh.

It didn't help that after a minute he'd stopped ringing repeatedly and just gave the meekest, saddest sounding knock on the door Strong Bad had ever heard. Dammit, how the heck did he manage to be stupidly charming even through a door? He sighed and got up to let him in. He couldn't avoid him, or the situation, forever.

Homestar had been about to leave- not to go home, but to try the back door instead. He was quite relieved to not have to go around back. Sometimes Strong Sad left the sprinkler running in the backyard.

He happily stepped inside despite how aggravated Strong Bad appeared as he did so. "Wow, did you fall asleep or what? Took you long enough."

"Sorry. Had the tv kinda loud," he lied. After a month of spending every minute of freetime with Homestar, he'd guessed that he could hear about three miles away if he focused on it. "What's up?"

He shrugged. "Not much. I was coming over to tell you something but I forgot what it was." His gaze strayed to the TV and he went over to turn it down more.

"I thought you didn't like watching NASCAR. You know, some guy down the street is selling a neat little racecar tin at a garage sale and I woulda grabbed it if I knew. By the way, where you wanna eat lunch today? I don't think we should go to Marshmallow's coz last time we went there it said the ATM was out of order and they might not've fixed it yet..." It was as if his flow of consciousness had somehow been backed up by the fact that Strong Bad hadn't opened the door earlier, and now that he was inside it was allowed to escape and catch up.

"Slow down," Strong Bad ordered, chuckling slightly. "I don't like NASCAR, I was just flipping through the channels. You really ... you shouldn't really be getting me presents anyway."

He rubbed his arms nervously. "Um, we can go there, if you want. I have money. Don't really ... I mean, I don't always need you to hit the ATM for me. We can just go ou... hang out."

"Sounds like a plan, Stan- and I know that's not your name, but it rhymes." He folded his arms behind his back and waited for Strong Bad to initiate their departure. After admittedly only a few seconds of silence he seemed to finally notice Strong Bad didn't seem as eager as usual for the outing. "You okay?"

"I'm fine. Just a little ..." He sighed, frustrated. "It's no big deal." He faked a smile. "See? Come on. I'm hungry."

"Okie dokie." Homestar accepted that response and followed him out the door.  
The two made minimal chit chat on the way to the diner. Homestar ended up dominating most of it as his fellow participant in the conversations seemed too distracted to offer much input. He walked ahead to get the door, nodding to car occupying a parking spot at the curb nearby as he passed it. "See, I told you this place was good. Even the police come here."

"The police?" Strong Bad raised an eyebrow, nervous. "Um. I'm not a big huge fan of the police. Maybe we should go somewhere else."

"Why?" Homestar snorted. "We're here already. We might as well get lunch." He pulled open the door. Inside, an officer was conversing with their usual waitress. She was shaking her head a lot, biting her lip. Then she looked over the officer's shoulder, noticing Homestar.

"Oh, there they are now," she observed.

Strong Bad tensed up. "Uh oh."

"Boys, we need to have a word with you," the officer said sternly.

The 'word' in question was 'theft'.

Strong Bad pulled at his handcuffs in the back of the police car. He glanced over at Homestar, frowning. "I'm ... I'm sorry I got you into this."

"It's illegal to abuse a computer error," the officer barked. "You're just lucky we can't pin all the money on you two."

Homestar merely sighed and stared at his own handcuffs. He could easily break them off if he wanted, but he had enough sense to know that he was in trouble, and the last thing he needed was to attract more attention to himself. Normal people didn't go around breaking out of their handcuffs. "Uh huh."

He jolted against the back of the seat as the car pulled away from the curb and fixed his gaze out the window. Who knew that was considered stealing? Money wasn't something you paid for, so it hadn't immediately occurred to him that it counted as- well, at least as much of an illegal activity to 'borrow' it. Now he just felt stupid. Of course it was bad. It still wasn't his own money. Strong Bad should have-

He stopped at that thought, his brain- or rather, adaptive learning program, kicking into gear. Strong Bad definitely should have known what they were doing was wrong. He was always the guy with the clue about what was going on. He couldn't have done it on purpose, could he? A few seconds passed before he glanced over at his companion and dared to ask what was now bothering him more than the fact that he'd been arrested.

"You weren't just hanging out with me to get money, were you?" He said finally.

Strong Bad looked like a deer in headlights. It was bound to come up one day, he just hadn't figured Homestar would piece it together that quickly. Then again, he was a walking super computer. Even if he lacked common sense, he was bright. Too bright.

He blinked in rapid succession, visibly flustered. "No!" he squeaked- a lie. That was how it started, right? Abusing his new toy's power? "Well, I mean..."  
_Just keep lying._

"... maybe at first."

He winced and looked away, feeling horribly guilty. It wasn't a feeling he was actually accustomed to. He didn't regret stealing the money, but the look on Homestar's face ... he looked so _betrayed_, Strong Bad just wanted to throw up.

Homestar choked out an "Oh," before going quiet again. He knew he should have been angry, but more than anything else he was disappointed. It had been nice to believe Strong Bad had actually started to enjoy his company. It had been nice, too, to imagine that they'd liked each other- maybe not at quite the same level, but all the same it had been good while it lasted. He couldn't find the words to say much else until they pulled up at their destination. As the officers got out of the front, he cleared his throat- an unnecessary thing to do for an android, but it was a habit that had been programmed into his social subroutines to make him seem more 'real.'

"Well, at least you don't have to fake it anymore."

With that, their driver opened his door and led him out of the car as the other officer pulled open the door on Strong Bad's side.

Strong Bad stared at him dejectedly. "Homestar, I-" The officer grabbed his shoulder and and motioned for him to get up. He sighed. Homestar probably wouldn't believe him, anyway. Hell, who would? He was a liar, and a good one.

He ended up calling his mother for bail money, but it turned out she didn't have have it. They had put all their funds into a vacation for the kids, apparently. He didn't blame her, but it was stupidly frustrating when Homeschool came and bailed Homestar out without batting an eyelash. He glared at the cell wall, arms crossed over his chest.

"Him too," Homeschool said calmly, and Strong Bad snapped to attention.

"...what?"

Homeschool ignored his inquiry, but there was the money. Strong Bad watched in awe as he handed it to the guard. Great, another wave of guilt. But why was Homeschool paying his bail _anyway?_

"There. You should be grateful I'm doing this, Homestar. This isn't cheap," Homeschool scolded, like a father to a misbehaving child. He sneered at Strong Bad and motioned for him to follow. "Come on."

Homestar lagged along behind, briefly considering the idea of locking himself back in the holding cell. Prison might be better than whatever Homeschool was going to do to him for this. He'd never been arrested before- at least, he couldn't remember being arrested before. He knew that his creator sometimes messed with his memory banks when he was reprogramming him. But on the bright side, maybe he'd just forget all this ever happened.

When they got out of the building, Homeschool directed his delinquent invention to the white van parked crookedly between two squad cars in the lot. Then he turned away, waiting for Strong Bad as he exited the building behind them. "I'll give you a ride home." It sounded more like an order than an offer.

Strong Bad tensed up nervously. "Okay."

He followed him, trying his best to keep some distance between himself and the other passengers. Homeschool was a difficult person to read. He was mad, that wasn't a secret, but how mad was he? He got into the back seat and pushed some electrical wires and trinkets aside. He picked one up and looked it over. This could be the same wire that made Homestar up on the inside. Could be his artery, or something. He frowned and tossed it aside.

He didn't like thinking about Homestar's ... inhumanness these days. It was hard to justify having a crush on a robot.

Homeschool got into the driver's seat without a word, turning the engine over and pulling out of the lot before he actually addressed the occupants of his vehicle. "I want you to understand that this is more of a warning than a favor. I had to pull quite a few strings to get you out so fast and to drop the charges. I can just as easily trace the other thefts back to you, Strong Bad."

"Don't," Homestar blurted. "It's not-"

"Homestar," the scientist snapped warningly, and he fell silent again.

"Anyway, my point is that I know you somehow stumbled across Homestar's true nature. At his request, I'm letting you go, but I need you to realize that you can't breathe a word about it to anyone." He paused. "And you need to stop interfering in his development. That means ceasing any and all interaction between you."

Strong Bad took a moment to take it all in. He blinked. "Wait... wait, you mean I can't even _talk_ to him?"

"That is precisely what I mean. And don't worry about work, I've already notified his previous employer about his immediate resignation. I just need you to stop... enabling him in taking part in these kinds of activities." He glanced out the side of his glasses at Homestar, who was in the passenger seat up front. Homestar quickly looked at his shoes.

"That's not fair!" Strong Bad snapped, instantly regretting it. Whatever, idiot, roll with it. "You can't just lock him away whenever someone makes a mistake. They happen. He's a learning program, right? He'll learn. Next time he'll know better than to listen to me. Or maybe he'll decide for himself that he doesn't wanna s...see me any..." He found himself losing steam, stuttering a bit. "Anymore. He's not a freakin' toy you can just lock away when you're mad at everyone."

"'Course I'd want to hang out with you again, if you actually wanted to," Homestar muttered.

Despite the outburst, Homeschool remained in the same, tense state of calm. "I am not locking him away from the world, nor am I reprogramming him- at least for now. It has just become clear to me that you are a bad influence on him that he obviously isn't prepared to resist, and I can't risk the destruction of this entire project merely so you can corrupt him further and go around earning yourself some extra lunch money again. I can only hope you haven't done enough permanent damage already. A new cybernetic brain costs more than the property values of every house in this neighborhood put together, not to mention the labor I have to put into fine-tuning the programs."

Strong Bad glared at him. "Stop talking about him like he isn't even here."

Homeschool glanced over his shoulder at him, then to Homestar, who was now leaning an elbow against the window and staring out of it moodily.

Their driver was silent for a moment, removing a hand from the wheel to nudge his glasses. "He's fine. I think you overestimate how developed his program is... which is perhaps fortunate." He tapped his fingers nervously on the wheel. "He should be able to recover," he muttered quietly, mostly as an assurance to himself.

"No one figured out he was a robot for three years. Maybe you shouldn't underestimate him," Strong Bad huffed angrily, going silent from then on out.

The drive was a short one, and Strong Bad hesitated to leave the van, despite Homeschool's insistence.

He eventually did as he was instructed, but not without smiling weakly at Homestar. "I wasn't faking it."

That said, he left the van and walked the rest of the way home, head hanging dejectedly.

Homestar stared after him curiously as they pulled away and into their own driveway.  
"Let's go," Homeschool prompted, yanking the passenger door open. His tone had gone from tense to tired since Strong Bad had been dropped off.

Homestar seemed to snap out of a train of thought and unfastened his seatbelt. "Yeah, coming." He followed his creator up the front steps, stopping briefly to sneak a glance over his shoulder at the house across the way. He smiled to himself, then went inside and shut the door behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Prototype 0.5**

**A collaborative fanfiction by Jenny (chakramchucker) and Mu (badpirate)**

Strong Bad crashed on the couch, looking as miserable as he felt. He turned on the television and laid down, staring at it without much interest in what was going on.  
After a few hours of mindless tv watching, he decided it was time to go to bed. He passed by Strong Sad's room, brow furrowed. The light was on. After a few seconds, he knocked. "Hey, nerd? Can I come in?"

There was some shuffling from within as Strong Sad got up to let him in. Rarely did his brother bother to ask, much less knock, hence his tendency to keep the door locked. He had a pencil tucked behind one ear and a book in hand when he pulled the door open. "What's up?"

What's up? Strong Bad thought about it. Lots of things were up, things he didn't really want to discuss with his baby brother. But who else knew _anything_ about androids? Especially this close to home?

"So um. Here's a hypothetical question ... let's say you fell in love with ... with a uh. A robot. And the robot's creator said you weren't allowed to speak to him... it again, what would you do? Hypothetically speaking." He rubbed his arm nervously. "Like, super hypothetical."

Strong Sad raised an eyebrow. His brother came up with the weirdest metaphors for his dating problems. "I'll assume we're talking about androids with sentience, since you've kept bringing 'em up for over a month now," he sighed. "Like I said before, it's a lost cause because androids can't love you back anyway. However, the second law of robotics does say androids have to follow commands given by humans... so there's not much you could do, I guess. Robots follow their programs." He folded his arms. "It also depends what you hypothetically did to tick off the creator and whether he's got a good reason to be angry with you."

"In this completely and totally fake situation, it's ... it's justified anger." He looked away, brow furrowed. "So, you're saying that since it's just a program, it would listen? It has no real reason to break the rules..."

He tried not to sound sad about that. He sighed. "Whatever. Thanks anyway, geek."

"You're welcome, I guess," Strong Sad replied with a shrug. As his brother left, he called after him, "Speaking of robots, if you're gonna keep borrowing my Popular Science magazines try not to spill soda on them before I get to read anything."

"I won't be borrowing them anymore," Strong Bad called back. He sighed. It would be too sad to read up on all that stuff.

He tossed aside some of his old clothes and laid down on the bed, moodily staring at at the ceiling. Sleep came eventually, but was interrupted by what sounded like pebbles against his window. He got up tiredly and went to the window, yawning. It was hard to see in the dark- he guessed it was around 4 or 5 am, but he squinted at the figure in his backyard. "...Homestar?"

"Good morning!" The shadowy but familiar trespasser flicked his hand in a little wave at the window, dropping a pebble in the process. He then glanced nervously over his shoulder and in either direction before pointing to the back door, motioning for him to come down.

Strong Bad didn't need to be told twice. He grabbed his mask from the nightstand before he hesitated. Whatever. He tossed it back on the bed and rushed downstairs, jumping the last four steps. He didn't exactly need to be quiet in his own house- Strong Mad slept like a log, and who cared if he woke Strong Sad up?

He opened the back door, suppressing a grin. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I-" Homestar bit his lip. He'd had everything figured out beforehand, but now that Strong Bad was standing there in front of him, he was having a hard time remembering what he was going to say. "I wanted to know if you meant it," he blurted.

"...meant it...?" Strong Bad thought back to the van, and what he had said. He was regretting leaving his mask behind now, a faint red color spreading across his face. "Yeah, I ... I did."

Homestar stared at him for a second. If nothing else, the blush had to prove he was telling the truth. His face lit up in a grin and he lunged forward, hugging him. "ThenIguessIcanforgiveyou."

Strong Bad blinked a few times. Ow. Robotic super strength was ... it was dangerous. He winced and hugged him back anyway, pulling away after a few seconds. He grinned back and threw his arms around his neck, pulling him down into a kiss. Never thought he'd miss _that._

Homestar returned it eagerly, only breaking it to giggle to himself. "I'm not stealin' any more stuff for you, though. Just so you know."

"I'm not gonna ask you to. Not that ... we'd have a whole lot of opportunities." He pulled away slightly, in thought. "...why are you here? Homeschool said you couldn't talk to me anymore. B... did you sneak out?"

He shrugged, still smiling. "Kinda. Yes. I wanted to see you. It took forever for Homeschool to go to bed, though. Sorry it's so late."

"No, it's ... it's fine," he muttered distractedly. "... y... you snuck out to see me. Even though you're an android and you're programmed to listen to Homeschool and he said not to talk to me, you came to see me anyway." He appeared to be talking mostly to himself. "You ... disobeyed your program. For me. You ..." He grinned. "Do you know what that means?"

Homestar blinked. "Um, that I'm probably gonna be in a lot of trouble again if he catches me."

"Besides that."

"Then n... no." Homestar hesitated. "I'm not glitching out. I just had a tune up a while ago."

Strong Bad just grinned and kissed him again. "That's not what I'm saying. Whatever, it's not important. Not on your end, anyway." He stepped back and sighed, visibly content. "You should... you should go, though. If he catches you, he'll dismantle the both of us."

"Oh he's sleepin' off a caffeine crash. He'll be out for at least three hours," Homestar snorted. "Totally dead to the world after all that coffee."

"You sure?" Strong Bad raised an eyebrow at him. He didn't wait for the response before he grabbed his wrists and jerked him inside. "Great. We can watch a movie or something before you gotta go." He smirked. "Or we can start watching a movie and do something different, if you want."

"The second one sounds good," Homestar chuckled.

"I figured. Oh, by the way, uh. I've been meaning to ask you..." He didn't look at him. "Strong Sad said that robots don't have sex drives. So. I mean. I guess what I'm asking is if you have ...a ..a sex drive. I'm fine if you don't, it's no biggie. I just like Strong Sad being wrong, yanno?"

"A... sex drive? You're gonna have to explain that one," Homestar frowned.

"That would be a no," Strong Bad snorted. "I didn't think so. It's a person thing. Reproduction and all that jazz. That's fine, I can live without sex. Been living without sex for three years."

He furrowed his brow. "...not that I would even know where to begin having sex with a guy, anyway. Don't worry about it." He grinned. "I'm fine just making out with my..." He hesitated, not quite liking the way the words sounded. "...my boyfriend."

"Boyfriend! You- but you said- " he blinked. "Really? So... no more having to ask permission for everything?"

"Yes, boyfriend. I really like you, even if you are clingy and annoying," he sighed, not sounding all that upset about those 'flaws'.

"Hmm." Homestar was too caught up in the moment to care about being insulted. He considered the implications of his newly bestowed boyfriend-hood. No more waiting for Strong Bad to give the okay, huh? This would be fun. Granted, there didn't seem to be much else that came with the whole dating status thing that they hadn't been doing before anyway, but the freedom to be spontaneous was nice. He smirked and yanked Strong Bad into another kiss, just to test it out.

Oh yes. Definitely fun.

Strong Bad kissed back briefly, before pulling away. "I'm not your girlfriend, you dip. You don't get to jerk me around like that," he scolded, raising an annoyed eyebrow. "You're way too impulsive."

"You've been jerkin' me around for the last month. It's only fair," Homestar chuckled. "C'mon, let's start that movie."

"...yeah, well, you liked it," Strong Bad countered smugly, heading downstairs. "I kinda had to anyway. My rule on the whole 'you can't kiss me' thing and all. If I didn't we'd never makeout and that's ... that's no fun." He cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Welp, now you don't have to worry about that rule so you don't have to do all the work anymore," Homestar pointed out cheerfully.

Strong Bad sighed, more than a little annoyed. "Well, I happen to like being in charge. Makes this whole situation slightly less gay."

"I don't see how you can still be worrying about that when we're dating. Maybe we can take turns coz you're cute when you're annoyed." He grinned.

"It's gonna take a while for this to stop being an issue. I've never felt this way about a guy or ... a guy shaped android," Strong Bad sighed. "...and I'm not cute."

"Yeah ya are," he replied automatically, used to the denial by now. He walked over to the TV and flipped open the cupboard beneath it. "Hmm, what do you wanna watch?"

"Not Deep Impact," Strong Bad responded, plopping down on the couch. "Augh. That movie is awful."

"Aw. That was gonna be my choice," Homestar pouted.

"No. Absolutely not. That is not proper makeout background sounds. Pick something quieter," Strong Bad ordered.

Homestar frowned. "Most of the movie is quiet 'till the asteroid part," he muttered as he poked through Strong Bad's small stash of DVD's. "You have too many movies with shooting in them to be quiet. How 'bout The Godfather? I never saw that one. Oh, hey- what's this..." He pulled out a DVD stashed in the back and examined it. "I think Marzi has this one. I didn't know you liked girl movies."

Strong Bad looked over. "I don't. Must be Strong Sad's. What is it?"

"'The Princess Bride'. Girl movies are usually pretty quiet, you wanna watch it?"

"Oh! That's not a girl movie," Strong Bad said, jumping up. "It's awesome. You've never seen it?"

"No," Homestar replied hesitantly. "How is it not a girl movie, it's got the word 'princess' in it."

"So? It's great. One of my favorites. Come on, put it in. It's hysterical," he urged, nudging him slightly.

Homestar rolled his eyes. "All right... if you're REALLY sure we can't watch Deep Impact..." He glanced at him hopefully.

"Positive."

"Fine." Homestar flipped open the box and got the DVD player ready to go before getting up to take a seat beside Strong Bad. A few minutes in- right around the scene when Westley was introduced, he made as if to stretch and slipped his arm behind his present company.

Strong Bad noticed and rolled his eyes. "Dork," he chuckled, leaning against him. "Pay attention, you dip."

"I am," Homestar giggled. "Just stretching."

Homestar quickly discovered that this movie- chick flick or not- held his attention well enough that it might even possibly be... almost as good as Deep Impact. In fact, when Buttercup was about to face the eels he'd completely forgotten about making out. He was perched on the edge of the couch, hanging on to Strong Bad in suspense as he bit his lip.

And then the DVD player shorted out.

"Wha-? What happened!" Homestar sat up, blinking at the blank screen in horror.

Strong Bad snapped out half-consciousness. "Huh? Oh." He rubbed his eye. "Dunno. Guess there's a wiring problem," he yawned, getting up. He inspected the back of the dvd player and huffed. "Stupid rats. They bit through the cord again."

"Lemme see that," Homestar huffed, getting up. He looked over the chewed up cord and frowned. "Can you fix it?"

"No," he sighed, shaking his head. "This is the third one this year. Frick. Oh well."

Homestar stared at it for a second. "Go get me a screwdriver and a scissors. And some kinda tape."

Strong Bad blinked. "Uh. Okay," he shrugged, getting up. He glanced over his shoulder at Homestar curiously.

He came back a few minutes later with the requested items. "Here ya go."

"Thanks," he flashed him a smile and then got to work dismantling the back panel of the DVD player. He then nonchalantly made a slit in his arm and snipped out a length of wire. He was about to start using it to patch up the gnawed gaps and replace the fried out section in the power supply when he realized the thing was still plugged in. He caught himself and laughed nervously, pulling the plug. "That would've sucked..." Then he got back to work.

Strong Bad sat down on the couch and watched curiously.

"Wow," he breathed after a minute of watching Homestar pull apart and piece together the wires effortlessly. "...holy crap. You're way smarter than I gave you credit for."

"I'm not sure this'll work, though. I only know a little about how to repair myself, but I figured it was worth a shot." He peered out momentarily from behind the TV. "I wanna know what happens to Buttercup."

Strong Bad smirked. "Told you it was a good movie."

"But not as good as Deep Impact," Homestar mused, mostly to annoy Strong Bad.

"...there's no comparison," Strong Bad huffed, laying back down on the couch. "Don't electrocute yourself."

"I don't think it would do much," Homestar shrugged as he taped up the wiring. He used another strip of tape to patch up his arm. He couldn't move his pinky anymore, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

Finally, he straightened up to examine his work, a smug grin of accomplishment on his face. He jammed the plug into the wall and heard the DVD player whir to life. "See a menu yet?" Homestar asked, still kneeling by the power cord.

"Actually ... yeah." He raised an impressed eyebrow. "You really fixed it. I can't believe it. I mean, I guess I can, you are a robot after all. But still."

"Hehe," Homestar stood up and started walking out from behind the TV. "You cou-" The rest of his boast didn't make it out, however, because his foot caught on the power cord and he tripped. Sparks flew out of the back of the back of the DVD player as the cord was ripped from the wall. He yelped and fell over.

Strong Bad jumped to his feet. "Holy crap! Are you okay?" He tried helping him up, but Homestar was twice as heavy as he looked. He winced and gave up, deciding to focus on undoing the cords instead. "Man, you are so freakin' clumsy."

Homestar just groaned in response, rubbing his eyes. Why were the lights so friggen bright all of a sudden? And everything was sort of blurry...

It became apparent as Strong Bad untangled his skinny ankles from the coils of the power cord that some of the electric current had jumped the wire; the tape had been pulled loose over the repaired segment from the stress of being yanked out of the wall. The bare metal left a bit of a scorch mark on the artificial skin.

Strong Bad bit his nails anxiously. "Frick. This doesn't look good. Crap, what the hell am I supposed to do? I can't just give you a bandaid, you're not a person."

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Homeschool could fix it in his sleep, but then he'd know Homestar was over here. He'd probably reprogram him to forget all about Strong Bad. That was no good. His eyes snapped open when he got an idea.

"I'll be right back. Hold on just a few minutes," he said, grinning nervously. With that, he dashed up the steps as fast as he could, knocking on Strong Sad's door urgently.

It took a bit of pounding before his brother appeared, yawning in the doorway. "Whadyouwant now?"

"Grab that nerdy toolkit of yours and let's go. I need you to fix something," Strong Bad ordered sharply.

Strong Sad glared at him. "It's like five in the morning. I'll fix it tomorrow," he muttered, closing the door.

"It can't wait until tomorrow! It's important!"

"If it's the Trogdor machine again, I have to order out parts to fix that anyway. You might as well just go to bed," Strong Sad argued wearily.

Strong Bad grunted in frustration. "It's not the Trogdor machine. It's Homestar, now will you please just ... just help?"

"...you need a toolkit for Homestar?" Strong Sad blinked at him.

"Not that you believe me anyway, but yes. Yes, I do. Now let's go already, he's really hurt," Strong Bad ordered, sounding a bit more panicked than he would have liked.

Strong Sad sighed and decided to go along with whatever it was his brother seemed to be so worked up about. He wandered back into his room to get his electronics hobby set and then followed Strong Bad down the stairs.

Homestar perked up when he saw- or rather, heard them return. Squinting sort of brought things into focus, but not very well. He'd pulled himself halfway to a sitting position against the couch, one arm flung out across the cushions to keep him from falling over. "Heyyy, Weshtley ya came back for me," he giggled. His voice came out sounding digitized. "Who's tha fat guy?"

Strong Bad felt his heart drop to his stomach. He looked to his brother expectantly. "Well?" He motioned to Homestar. "Fix him! You're the giant nerd here. Be the useful kind."

"I... is he... " Strong Sad stared as Homestar started humming to himself, his voice betraying his true nature. "You mean you were telling the truth?"

"Yes, I was telling the truth," Strong Bad huffed indignantly. "Now get to work. Fix him. Do _something_, if Homeschool finds out he snuck over here he's going to reprogram him or _worse_."

"Now I know why he wouldn't want you hanging around him. You always break your electronics," Strong Sad muttered. He set his tools beside Homestar and folded his arms, frowning. "I don't know what you expect me to do. Fixing your computer is one thing... but he's... are you sure you can't just call Homeschool?"

"No," Strong Bad said quickly. "Not if I don't have to. I mean, I know he'd be able to fix him but..." He trailed off and shook his head. "He's not supposed to see me anymore. Ever. If Homeschool found out he came over here, he'd wipe his harddrive. Poof. Everything gone. Even if I did ever see him again, he ... he wouldn't even know who I was." His shoulders slumped. "I know it's stupid, I know he's just a machine, but I think I love him and I don't think I could handle that. So just try, okay?" He paused. That sounded super sappy in retrospect. "...or I'll beat the snot out of you." That helped, slightly.

Strong Sad was quiet for a moment. "As advanced as it is, I doubt it still uses a hard drive for memory storage," he noted, nonetheless unpacking his tool kit. He kneeled beside Homestar, looking him over. The construction was seamless. Leave it to his brother to find a way to totally fry out a work of art like this. But how the crap was he supposed to even start working on something so complex? It had him fooled.

Obviously it still had his brother fooled into thinking it was sentient. He certainly didn't want to do any further damage... Homestar was one-of-a-kind.

"What happened?" Strong Sad asked, turning to his brother, but Homestar answered.  
"I got zapped by an eel. 'lectric one," he winced.

"He tried fixing the dvd cord and got zapped," Strong Bad answered, kneeling beside him. He frowned. "You know how the rats keep biting through them?"

"Why would you let an android near a power source?" Strong Sad scolded. "Enough electricity and his memory could already be wiped. Or his program, or both. That's about the worst thing you could do." He pulled out a flashlight and started using it to inspect Homestar's eyes, but his subject shoved him away and covered them.

"Don't DO that," Homestar complained.

"You can't treat him like a person. His eyes aren't going to follow the light anyway. His program's whacked, anyway. Just ... I dunno, do your nerdy robo-geek stuff."

"I know that. I wanted to see how his senses are responding," Strong Sad replied haughtily. "I think he's overloaded. If we can force his program to restart, maybe it'll be able to fix itself enough to work again. At least enough to get back to Homeschool's and get some real repairs."

Strong Bad sent him a glare. "How do you expect me to restart him? He doesn't exactly have an ignition key."

"Well..." Strong Sad frowned. "There's gotta be a button or a switch somewhere. Probably hidden. If I made an android, I wouldn't want it to accidentally reboot itself all the time."

He scratched his chin. "Hmm. Well, where would you put it? Somewhere no one ever really sees or touches. So..."

"Belly button, inside an ear, underarm, between the toes maybe..." Strong Sad listed. "There are other places people don't go that I'd... imagine robots have no use for, but I'd rather rule out those other possibilities first." He cleared his throat. "Plus I can't imagine Homeschool would... well. Nevermind. I'll check his feet if you check his upper body."

Strong Bad wrinkled his noise. "Yeah, I'm having my doubts that he's built anatomically correct, anyway. So I wouldn't worry about that." He tilted Homestar's chin up and inspected behind his ears. He blinked. "I think I found it. Guess you're not useless afterall."

"I hope that means you'll make fun of me less for all the reading I do," Strong Sad replied. He scooted over beside his brother. "All right, you hold his head and I'll hit the switch."

Homestar pulled away slightly. "What're you g-g-guys doing? That..." His eyes fluttered as Strong Sad pressed the tiny button. He slumped against the couch, limp as a puppet. A big, expensive, highly advanced puppet.

"Give it a second," Strong Sad assured his brother. "As complex as it is, who knows how long a reboot's gonna take."

Strong Bad nodded nervously.

A second was more like a few minutes, and Strong Bad anxiously waited for Homestar to move again. "You sure that wasn't the off switch?" he asked for the fifth or sixth time.

"No, I'm not," Strong Sad snapped, finally giving up on trying to keep his brother satisfied. He shifted uncomfortably. "I told you, you shoulda called Homeschool, but noo, you had to have some silly secret affair going on. Couldn't you just find a real-" He stopped, startled by the movement of Homestar's head jerking upright.

Homestar opened one eye, then the other. He blinked and looked around jerkily, then frowned at his foot where Strong Sad had yanked off a shoe in the short-lived search for his reset button. "My shoe is off," he noted with disapproval.

Strong Bad grinned and threw his arms around his neck. "You're okay!" He quickly remembered that his baby brother was in the room and ended the show of affection abruptly. He cleared his throat. "Uh, we-welcome back," he muttered, in the manliest way possible.

Strong Sad just rolled his eyes.

"I didn't know I left," Homestar responded. "Of course I'm okay."

"You got hurt," Strong Bad huffed. He glared at him. "And you scared the hell out of me! Geez, tell Homeschool next upgrade you want to stop being so clumsy."

"Oh... sorry." His eyes darted briefly to Strong Sad and he smiled nervously. "Better not mention upgrades too loud. Your brother's right here," he whispered.

Strong Bad raised an amused eyebrow and hugged him again. "Oh god you're so dumb."

"I didn't even do anything," he huffed, returning the hug.

"Cool... it's like his program reset itself from the moment right before it got fried," Strong Sad observed, disregarding his brother's behavior in favor of sating his curiosity. "What kind of power do you run on?"

"Uh... " Homestar hesitated. "What do you mean?"

"You can't be electric. Are you nuclear?" Strong Sad guessed.

"N... no. I'm just... normal. I eat food."

"This isn't a car show, nerd," Strong Bad growled, tightening his grip on Homestar. "He doesn't have to give you his specs. That's private stuff."

"But he's an android," Strong Sad said in as excited a voice as was probably possible for him. "I gotta know."

"I figured this would happen," Homestar muttered.

"Fine, I'll just talk to Homeschool on Thursday at sci fi club. No wonder he's always talking about artificial intelligence. He must've spent years building that," he motioned to Homestar.

"NO!" Strong Bad snapped, jumping to his feet. He jabbed his brother in the chest angrily. "You can't let him know that you know. It's a secret for a reason. And if he finds out that you found out, he'll piece it together and figure out that Homestar was here and I'll never see him again. They'll move to Alaska or something!"

Strong Sad winced. "Okay, jeez. But he's gonna find out sooner or later. Besides, I wasn't gonna spill the beans on your secret... whatever you have going on."

Strong Bad narrowed his eyes. "He's not gonna find out. Ever. I have a plan," he huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "Well, sort of. It's a work in progress but I still have one. Whatever. It's none of your business."

"Then good luck, I guess," Strong Sad replied. He knew the odds of any plan of his brother's working out successfully were... bad. He nodded toward Homestar. "Make sure he stays away from power cords in that plan of yours."

Strong Bad reddened unintentionally and pointed up the stairs. "Out."

"But... ugh, okay." Strong Sad grudgingly went back upstairs. He'd been hoping to catch Homestar in the act of doing something else robot-y and cool. Why did his brother always end up with the cool things? He was totally wasting it, too. Making out... with a robot. It was weird enough before he knew what Homestar was.

He waited until Strong Sad left to ease up. "Finally. Man, he's so ... augh. Talking about you like you're a thing like that," he huffed, sitting down beside Homestar. He looked him over nervously. "You sure you're okay?"

"I dunno. I've never been electrocuted before," Homestar replied honestly. "I feel okay, 'cept maybe a bit jittery." He examined his hands and the pinky he'd sacrificed the motor functions of for wire, then proceeded to put his shoe back on. He paused to rub the burn mark off the skin of his leg as best as he could.

Strong Bad stilled seemed unsure. "Maybe you should go home. I don't want you to breakdown or anything because you wanna spend time with me."

"I don't want to go home. I just got here. Sorta..." Homestar pouted. He wasn't quite sure how long he'd been out as his internal clock had been reset on reboot. "Besides, I don't know what I'm gonna tell Homeschool about my leg. And I STILL don't know what happened to Buttercup!"

Strong Bad laughed. "Um. Hmm. Well, I can't help you with the leg... I would hide that for a little bit. But if you want, you can borrow the dvd. My dvd player got fried anyway," he said, thumbing towards it.

"I can't hide it if I get it repaired. Guess I'll just skip that this week," he shrugged. "But seriously, if I can borrow it that'd be awesome. I'm gonna be so bored until Homeschool lets me get another job."

"You worked because you were _bored?_" Strong Bad raised an eyebrow. "Wow. If I didn't have to work, I'd never ...work. You're so weird."

"Pff I'm not weird, you're just lazy," Homestar snorted. "'Course I like work. I get to hang around people all day and type stuff and not have to listen to Homeschool rambling all the time about boring-ness. Or stand around talking about me to himself like I'm not there."

Strong Bad snorted. "People seem to do that when they know you're an android." he muttered, glaring up the steps. He leaned against his shoulder. "...there's nothing wrong with being lazy."

Homestar put his arm around him, smiling a bit. "Well, you're not lazy when it counts so that's something. But if you're gonna be assistant manager at the office, you're gonna have to be at least a little bit less lazy or they'll fire ya."

He raised an eyebrow. "Huh? I'm not assistant manager."

"Oh, not yet. But the last thing I did before I had to leave was type up emails for all the promotions. You got promoted. Like, three levels I guess." He grinned smugly.

Strong Bad blinked a few times before he jabbed him in the chest. "You better not be screwing with me because I'm gonna be super pissed if this is all a joke."

"Nah, you never get my jokes," Homestar chuckled. "I guess they were impressed by your evaluation this year."

He grinned and threw his arms around his neck. "Oh man, you're the best! I had forgotten all about that."

"Y-yeah, well- maybe I'm a little 'the best,'" Homestar giggled. "I just wrote what you told me to."

Strong Bad kissed him. "Yeah, but this is awesome! Aw man. Assistant manager." He grinned. "I get an OFFICE. An actual office, with windows and a door and FOUR WALLS." He furrowed his brow. "Aw, crap."

"What's wrong?"

"...all the assistant managers have their names on the doors," he sighed angrily. "I'm not exactly thrilled at having 'Bellamy Strong' on my door for everyone in the office to read. That was a well kept secret."

"Oh. Well that's no big deal, I can change your name in the computer files," Homestar shrugged. "That's what they look at anyway."

"You don't work there anymore," he reminded him. "...and no one will believe my name is ACTUALLY Strong Bad."

"Oh. Hmm..." he frowned. "People believe my name is Homestar. Why wouldn't they?"

"... I never believed your name was really Homestar."

"But it is!" Homestar huffed. "Everybody calls me that."

"I just figured it was a goofy nickname," he shrugged. "I mean, Homeschool, Homestar ... I dunno. It matches a little bit, doesn't it? I don't think his real name's Homeschool, anyway. I think Strong Sad said it was like ... Isaac? Or something? I don't remember."

"Yeah, I told him if we gotta be cousins our names should match more so I started callin' him Homeschool when we first moved here." He sighed nostalgically. "Man, that was back when I still had to plug into the wall at night."

Strong Bad rolled his eyes. "Either way, I never believed your name was Homestar. I figured it was something horrible and embarrassing like mine."

"Mm..." Homestar tapped his fingers together. Technically his 'model' did have a name. One that Homeschool- Isaac, had selected before he'd assigned himself his own title. He didn't care about embarrassment, but he didn't like the idea of keeping a name that might end up belonging to another android. "Yeah, nope. That's my name."

"Homestar, huh," Strong Bad mused. "...so when you filled out applications and stuff you write _Homestar Runner?_ Really? I'd think it was a joke."

"No, I put 'H-M' Runner on my applications," Homestar replied curtly. "They didn't reject it when it was abbreviated."

"... what does the M stand for?"

He blinked. "Uh... just Michael."

"...why the heck is your middle name something normal like Michael when your first name is so ridiculous?" Strong Bad laughed.

Homestar glared at him. "My name's not ridiculous, it's unique! And just so you know, it was part of the other name I used to have. I didn't pick it out. I just couldn't think of one to put instead..."

"You used to have a different name?" He grinned. "What was it?"

"It's my model name," he scowled. "I don't use it anyway. I got my own name so I can't be copied."

"Aw, come on. I wanna know," Strong Bad said insistently. "You know _mine_."

"That's different, though."

"Tell me."

"Hubert. It stands for humanoid biomimetic... something or other," Homestar muttered. "I think I'm on version 9.6 now."

"...Hubert?" he repeated, biting on his lip to keep from laughing. "...SERIOUSLY? Oh wow. Homeschool fails acronyms 101."

Homestar shot him another glare. "Oh come on it's not that bad, I just don't like what it means."

"Oh it's really _that bad._" He snickered. "Suits you, though. It's nerdily cute. I mean ... I wouldn't want it to be my name but oh man. It fits you."

Homestar just frowned and leaned back with a snort, folding his arms over his chest. "It's not me."

"It's cute," Strong Bad said, getting over his gigglefit. He leaned against him, grinning. "But yeah. Homestar's better. I mean, it's way lamer and super weird, but you've always been Homestar to me. Suits you just fine."

That seemed to cheer him up, even with the whole 'lame' remark. "I'd make 'em put it on my door if I had an office. I don't care if it's weird."

"Yeah, well..." He seemed to be getting back on topic. "I care if mine's weird. Augh. I hate my mom, she has the worst taste in names ever. Melvin, Salem, Bellamy... _augh._"

"That's what nicknames are for. At least yours doesn't spell out what kinda robot you are." He glanced down at Strong Bad. "Er, person. Whichever. Anyway I still think Bellamy is a nice name."

"It's a nice name for an 8 year old girl, yes. For a 26 year old man? No. Unacceptable."

"Seems about the same as calling yourself 'Strong Bad' to me. I don't mind either one. It's kind of like..." he paused thoughtfully. "You're Bellamy without your mask, and Strong Bad with it on. You know, like Batman and Bruce." He grinned. "You could be some kinda superhero."

"While I appreciate the comparison to Batman, no. Bellamy is an awful awful name. It's a girl's name. I'm not a girl. Ergo, it's not fitting _at all_."

"No, I guess not other than your face being girl-ish," Homestar conceded. "That part matches up, and it's like... rascally."

Strong Bad glared at him. "You should go," he muttered darkly. "Homeschool might wake up soon."

"Oh, yeah. I almost forgot about that." Homestar cleared his throat, getting up. "Soo... see you tomorrow night then?"

He frowned. "I have work in the morning. I can't exactly be up until 5 am, making out with you before I gotta leave. Mmm. What are you doing for lunch tomorrow?"

Homestar shrugged. "Sometimes Homeschool sends me out to get takeout. We could hang out then as long as I remember to bring food back."

"Call me, then. If not, no big deal." He got to his feet, sighing. "We're hardly ever gonna see each other now. This sucks."

"Yeah. I finally get to date you and I can't even do it right. Homeschool is so... augh." He snorted and put his hands on his hips, glaring off at the wall. "It's not fair."

"We'll figure something out," Strong Bad assured him. He grabbed his hands and pulled him down into a quick kiss. "I promise."

Homestar chuckled. "Hope so. Well, seeya later~" He flashed Strong Bad a grin and a wave before heading out.

Strong Bad watched him go, smile fading.

Frick. What was he supposed to do now?

He hardly had any time to think about it. Between stopping himself from texting Homestar every twenty minutes and shopping for a 'business appropriate' suit for his new promotion, he didn't have a spare minute.

He sighed and leaned against the window of the bus, glancing at his reflection. He glared at it. He missed his mask, but _apparently_ the company didn't think masked wrestlers made good assistant managers and it had to go. He ran his hand through his hair, eyes narrowed. It wasn't so bad with the haircut, but he wasn't liking the idea of having to go to the barber's every few weeks. He went back to his phone to text Homestar again, unable to resist the urge. It had been almost two weeks since he had seen him and he was going crazy.

He glanced at Strong Sad, and tilted his phone away from him before sending the stupidly embarrassing 'I miss you.' text. He'd never live it down if Strong Sad saw.

It wasn't as though Strong Sad didn't know who he was so steadily flooding the cell towers for. He kind of liked the bonding opportunity the whole situation made possible- a common secret between them, like he hadn't had since the time Strong Bad was trying to practice for his driver's license and backed into the garage door.

But at the same time it was rather tragic, wasn't it? His brother was utterly infatuated with that machine. It was bound to end eventually, and he doubted that end would be a pleasant one. Maybe that's why he found Homestar so fascinating; it took a lot to keep Strong Bad's interest this long. That had to be some AI program.

He heard Strong Bad swear as the bus hit a bump and his phone skittered across the floor, stopping at the soles of his gray Converse All-Stars. With a sigh, he picked it up and handed it over to his brother. "Stop messing with your hair, somebody's gonna think you have fleas."

Strong Bad glared at him, taking his cell phone back. "People in suits don't get fleas," he huffed, brushing his hand through his hair again. "This is weird. I've never been at the office without my mask. No one's even gonna know who I am. Augh."

"Maybe that's a good thing," Strong Sad muttered. "It'll take them longer to notice the clerical error that got you in there..."

"Very funny. I earned this promotion, nerd. Besides," he huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "Rent'll be easier now. We'll have a lot of extra money."

"Yeah but after that trick you pulled with the copy machine on the last assistant manager, I would've thought I'd've gotten promoted before you," Strong Sad observed moodily. "Oh well. Hey, so have you asked Homestar yet if he knows whether he was designed statistically or symbolically? I'm guessing his program is statistical, but I wanted to know for sure for when I go to the library later."

"...no. No, I haven't and I don't plan to," he replied angrily. "He's not ... that's not even important. Why do you need to know?"

"Well... it's _somebody's_ turn to present a topic of discussion at S.F.C. this afternoon and I just want to ask the right questions," Strong Sad replied. "So I'm wondering what AI approach your boyfriend was built from. Can you text him for me?"

Strong Bad reddened. "Think of a different topic," he snapped. "Homestar's not up for discussion, okay?"

"But I've been planning this for weeks," Strong Sad complained. Two weeks, to be precise. "I can't just switch topics now. I've been doing research. Besides, I'm not gonna mention Homestar. You know I wouldn't do that."

"Change of topic," Strong Bad hissed, jabbing him in the chest. "Homeschool's in that dorky club, he might get suspicious if my brother suddenly starts asking about AI ... especially the AI his android uses."

Strong Sad pouted, putting a hand to his chest protectively. "But..."

He sighed, frustrated. He'd been dying for the chance to talk to Homeschool all week and now that he was going to get it, he wasn't allowed to mention anything to do with androids or artificial intelligence? Surely he'd underestimated the cruelty factor of the universe again. "Augh... I guess there's always that new Star Trek book series to talk about."

"Yes. Perfect. That's great. Talk about Star Wars-"

"Trek," Strong Sad corrected irritably.

"...Trek and not my boyf... and not Homestar," he ordered. "And stop asking me to text him for you. I'm not giving you his number for a reaso-"

He stopped when his phone beeped a few times. A text. He flipped it open and grinned, temporarily forgetting that he was mad at his brother. It lasted all of 30 seconds before he snapped the phone shut. "I'm keeping it private for a reason. Homestar doesn't like to be treated like a computer. Asking him all those bizarro questions is definitely out."

"I'm okay with that. I wouldn't want him accidentally sending me a text that was meant for you," Strong Sad observed. "And you know, technically he is a computer."

"That doesn't mean he likes being treated like one. You're technically a whale but you don't see me sending you off to Seaworld with a bucket of fish," he huffed.

Strong Sad frowned. "I've been on a diet. Besides, you know what I meant."

"It doesn't matter what you meant. He's my boyfriend, not my laptop, so quit asking me his specs," he huffed, glaring out the window.

"This is why I wanted to talk to Homeschool," Strong Sad snorted. The two remained at odds until the bus came to a stop at their corner. Strong Sad mumbled 'good luck' as his brother passed him.

Strong Bad took a deep breath, feeling strangely nervous. Pom Pom had gone over the basics of the job. Wasn't much harder than his regular one, just a lot more people intensive. He frowned, and as he walked in his cell phone went off again. He flipped it open, greeted by a cheery 'good luck' with some ... sort of jibberish after it. He tilted his head to the side.

Oh. It was supposed to be a heart. He sighed, and shook his head. How Homestar managed to be that stupidly lame and adorable via a text message was impressive. While he was analyzing his message, he walked right into Pom Pom.

He jumped back nervously. "Ah! Uh, hey Pom Pom. You ready for today?"

Pom Pom blinked at him for a few seconds before recognition set in. "Oh. I brought my Advil, yes," he replied with a chuckle. "Sorry, I almost thought you were one of my secretaries for a second. Your office is over there." He motioned. "And... if you could keep the text messaging to a minimum, Strong Bad... company policy. Make sure you follow it because I'll be checking up on you." He shook his head as he left, heading out to the conference room for a meeting.

As he passed by Strong Sad's cubicle, he muttered something about human resources having gone insane with their evaluations. Strong Sad winced and turned back to face the mind numbing grid of the database on his computer screen.

Lucky for Strong Sad, he was only part time most of the week. When noon rolled around, he was able to leave. Until then, however, he got to stare at a long long _long_ list of numbers.

He sighed. "I wonder if this is what Homestar's thoughts look like," he muttered, tracing a finger over some 1s and 0s on his screen. He frowned. Stupid Strong Bad. Keeping mankind's greatest invention all to himself so he could make eyes at it. Ugh. He wrinkled his nose. _What a waste._

Androids should be curing cancer and manning dangerous space missions to Mars and beyond, not feeling up his older brother on the couch. He sighed. And his older brother should know better than to allow that. If Homestar was a more feminine model, he could understand the appeal, but it was most definitely _male_ shaped.

He typed in some numbers mindlessly, keeping his pace slow. Too fast and the company would up the quota. Though, he supposed losing Strong Bad and Homestar on the floor, everyone was going to have to scurry to catch up. Strong Bad could type twice, maybe even three times as fast as he could on his best day, and Homestar even faster than that. He nervously looked around. Other people seemed to realize that and were typing away furiously.

Eventually his sense of duty got the better of him and he sped up his pace a little. Only four hours to go, he assured himself. He didn't want to be asked to stay late and risk ruining his afternoon plans, even if his brother sort of had already.

Four hours and forty-five minutes later, he was getting off the bus again outside the public library. The Sci-Fi Club meeting wasn't scheduled to begin for a while yet, but he liked to come early to browse the books. He usually wandered through the fiction section on such occasions, but lately he'd been spending more time in the reference area. He skimmed over a lot of titles he'd already checked out; it was hard to find non-fiction books about androids.

"Excuse me." Someone cleared their throat behind him and he turned, stepping aside. A familiar man in glasses pushed past him, replacing a book on biomechanics on the shelf and grabbing another next to it.

Strong Sad blinked a few times. "Oh. Hi, Homeschool," he whispered, respecting the rules of the library. He took a look at the name of the book, making a mental note of it. "You're here early."

"Yes, I needed some additional resources for a project of mine," Homeschool replied distractedly. "I'm not sure if I'll be hanging around for the whole meeting today. I've got some business to take care of."

"Oh." Strong Sad furrowed his brow. "Wh...what kind of project? I've been looking into..."  
He remembered Strong Bad's order, and ignored it. This wasn't the meeting, anyway. "...I've been looking into AI, recently. Just playing around. It's been interesting. You ever play with it?"

That seemed to grab Homeschool's attention more than the small talk and he lowered his book. "You don't _play_ with artificial intelligence. It's a highly complex field of study," he snorted.

Strong Sad tapped his fingers together. "Oh. Right. Well, I've only just started. I'm curious, do you uh ... do you recommend working statistically or symbolically?"

"Well, I'd actually look into hybridizing the basic aspects of th..." he trailed off and cocked his head suspiciously. "Wait a moment. This doesn't have anything to do with your brother, does it?"

"What?" Strong Sad blinked, caught off guard. "N-no, of course not, don't be silly, why would it?" Oh great. Word vomit.

"No reason," Homeschool muttered, not sounding entirely convinced of Strong Sad's innocence. "In any case, if you want my honest opinion I'd recommend against that field of study. It's probably a lost cause." His tone went a little bitter towards the end of that tidbit of advice. He tucked his book under his arm and turned away.

Strong Sad frowned. Darn. Didn't look like he was getting much out of him.

"But it's so fascinating. I mean, one day they might even make an android capable of making informed decisions! Doesn't that interest you?"

"Of course it does," Homeschool replied. He fidgeted and turned back around to address Strong Sad. He knew he shouldn't say anything... but his frustration had been building all week. He had no outlet and ranting seemed inevitable. "Did you ever stop to consider that an android capable of making informed decisions can also make misinformed ones? The trick is building something that can distinguish between the two. Naturally you'd conclude installing baseline morality codes into an evolving program would be enough of a security measure, but no. It's not. It's pointless to program a machine with an ability to make decisions when there's no way to instill that sense of... of _sense_ that most people have naturally."

There was silence for a few seconds. "...but everyone makes bad decisions," he said, frowning. "Heck, you think it was a good idea for Strong Bad to just skip college and go straight to work? No. You think it was a great idea for me to go to art college _instead_ of going straight to work? Probably not. People... people make mistakes. It's to be expected that any realistic AI make mistakes as well."

Homeschool frowned. "Yes, but they should still have the sense to avoid major discrepancies between their actions and moral guidelines." He shrugged. "I've no idea. Maybe you're right, but there are-" he paused to push up his glasses. "There's just too much for anyone to hope to take into account for these kinds of projects. That's why I say it's probably a lost cause. And if you could tell your brother to stop trying to pry into my business through you, I'd greatly appreciate it."

"Oh please, Strong Bad doesn't know a ball-socket joint from his elbow," Strong Sad snorted. "He wouldn't even know what to ask. Everytime I ask him to ask Homestar s-" He stopped himself, going pale. Oh, way to go, Strong Sad, you just signed your death certificate.

"I see. I suppose I should have expected this... Strong Bad couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it," Homeschool huffed. "How many people have you told?"

"No one. Heck, I didn't even believe Strong Bad at first," he said, grinning weakly. He tapped his fingers together. Did this mean Homestar was up for discussion now? "...d...do you mind if I sit in on one of your tune ups? And how did you make it so his skin's warm? And how do you repair tears and burns, because when he electrocuted himself I had no idea what to do. Oh man, I have a million questions but it's all just ..." He chuckled nervously. "Jibberish, right now. You just have to let me see his motor. I assume it's in the chest cavity? And how do you keep the gears so quiet?"

Homeschool rolled his eyes. "I can't afford to contaminate the project. Not to mention most of those technologies are still property of... the people I sometimes work for. It's not that I wouldn't love to discuss it, I-" He blinked. "When did he electrocute himself?"

"Few weeks ago," Strong Sad shrugged. "I had to reboot him. Clever putting the button behind the ear, easy to access but discreet. Nice."

"Th... thank you," Homeschool said hesitantly. "You mean you rebooted him without my knowledge? He's gone weeks without any repairs beyond a few cuts and scrapes..."

He groaned. Damn, he'd have to perform a full system diagnostic just to make sure nothing was damaged. "What was he doing, anyway? I don't understand why he wouldn't tell me something like that. And what were you doing with him?" He raised a suspicious eyebrow.

"I was sleeping until Strong Bad barged into my room at 5 in the morning." He rolled his eyes. "I think they were watching a movie, or at least ... they had a movie on." He gagged. "What a waste."

"He was with Strong Bad?" Homeschool snarled a bit and shoved the book he was holding back on the shelf. A librarian walked past and glared at him for raising his voice, and he flashed her a weak, apologetic smile before she moved on and he continued in a quieter voice.

"Wonderful. I thought I had gotten through to him last time but apparently not. I need to know exactly when and what happened," he demanded, prodding Strong Sad in the chest. "If I am to undo all of the damage, I need to know the extent of it. Has he been in contact with Homestar since then?"

"Um. It was the night Strong Bad was arrested...?" he guessed. Yeah, that seemed about right. "I don't think they've actually seen each other sin..." He furrowed his brow. Not true.

"Well, actually, I think two weeks ago they hung out in the basement for a few hours. You were at some convention that day. I had the pleasure of walking in on them," he muttered, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "And they've been texting each other like crazy. But I should warn you, when Strong Bad likes someone he's persistent. He'll get bored, though, you can bank on that."

Homeschool snorted. "_Likes someone_? No, no. Homestar seems to enjoy his company, but your brother has never truly returned that sentiment. I know because I keep track of all of Homestar's interactions and relationships. I'm afraid to even find out what scheme he's got Homestar mixed up in now under the pretense of being friends with him or whatever he is claiming now."

Strong Sad chuckled, amused. He tried to hide it when a librarian shot him a dirty glare. "Uh, y-yeah. Yes. Of course. But I don't think Strong Bad's scheming anything this time."

Homeschool glared at him. "Your brother is selfishly compromising massive amounts of money, effort, and most importantly time that I've invested in this project. I fail to see what's so amusing about that. And I'm beginning to think you've been acting as an enabler."

"What...? No! I don't think he's trying to ruin your project," Strong Sad insisted. "I think he's just ..." He bit his lip. Out his brother or have Homeschool think Strong Bad was trying to destroy his project? "...he's just got really really poor choice in ... um. Well, what I mean is..." He twirled his hand, face flushing slightly. "...he's got a bit of a ... he's a little ... infatuated...with your android," he said, wincing slightly.

Homeschool stared at him for a second. "You can't be serious," he scoffed.

"I've caught them making out in my basement more times than I'd like to remember," Strong Sad muttered. "I'm serious. It can't be healthy, feeling that way about a machine. He doesn't seem to think it's a problem, though."

Homeschool, on the other hand, was more worried about his machine than Strong Bad's mental health. "Making out? But he hasn't been- Homestar wasn't programmed to-" He rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes briefly, too flustered to continue. "Of course it's a problem! A very big problem. I'd have to disassemble him just to make sure..."

"Sir, this is a library," one of the bookkeepers hissed, interrupting his rant. "You're going to have to-"

"Yes, fine, I am leaving," Homeschool snapped. "Let me finish with this, will you?" He turned back to Strong Sad. "You're absolutely certain they're... together? It's very important that you be honest about this. It will be affecting the actions I take to deal with this situation."

"Disassemble?" Strong Sad repeated, visibly concerned. "Why? I mean, yes, I'm sure, but ... that's a little extreme, isn't it?"

"Nevermind that, just answer the question. You are certain you have seen what you say you did?"

Strong Sad hesitated. "Yes, I'm certain."

Homeschool adjusted his glasses in quiet, discontented thought. "Very well. Thank you for your information. I think I need to go."

Strong Sad watched him go, immediately whipping out his cell phone.

A few minutes later, Strong Bad received a text. He realized it wasn't from Homestar and groaned, reading it anyway.

_Homeschool knows_

He paled and got up from his desk. "Pom Pom, something came up. I need to roll out a little early, is that cool? I thought so, okay see ya bye."

"What-? No, it's not cool. Bellamy!" He shouted after his assistant, but it didn't seem to do much. As Strong Bad disappeared out the front door, he shook his head and sighed. "Susan, will you get human resources on the line? I think I need to have a chat with them."

Strong Bad ran to the bus stop, and after finding out the next bus didn't come for forty minutes, he ran to the next one, and quite a few after that. Homeschool _knew_.

He was probably tearing Homestar's memory board apart right now. He slammed his fist against the telephone pole and snarled. It took him too long to finally realize how he felt about that stupid, dorky, adorable robot, and he wasn't giving him up now because daddy said no.

He huffed and texted Homestar. 'hide at my place until I get home'. He didn't even bother with proper grammar, there was no time.

Homestar frowned as his cellphone flashed the dire message. He'd been casually snacking on marshmallows and watching a gameshow up until that point. "Hide? What the heck..." he muttered through a mouthful of mostly sugar. Who was he supposed to be hiding from? Were the police coming back for him? Or maybe Strong Sad had gone and told the news station about him being a robot, and now tons of people with cameras were coming to poke at him and ask him to show off his gears and wires.  
But Homeschool was supposed to be coming home soon from the library. He didn't know if he should risk going over to Strong Bad's place...

He glanced at the text again. Man, Strong Bad was usually really picky about grammar. It must've been important. He bit his lip and then got up, turning off the TV. He'd better just do it to be on the safe side- oh, but first he had to take out the garbage. Homeschool would be really miffed if that wasn't done when he got home. He texted Strong Bad back- 'be over in a sec'.

Five minutes later he threw his shoes on and yanked open the door- and just about ran over Homeschool, garbage bags in hand. "Oh! What are... um. I mean, hi." He blinked. "Why are you here?"

Homeschool glared at him, eyes narrowed. "Authorize vocal override. Confirm identity Weyls, Isaac." There was a beep from somewhere in the back of Homestar's throat in recognition of these orders and he dropped the bags, arms going to his side lifelessly. "Project Hu.B.E.R.T., humanoid biomimetic emotional replication type version 9.6 is to report to the laboratory and prep for immediate disassembly." He pushed his glasses up and watched Homestar march obediently to the basement, following at his heels.

Homestar climbed wordlessly into a custom framework that vaguely resembled the chair at optometrist's office- in fact, it had been modified from one. Homeschool was very fond of recycling materials for more creative uses.

He wasn't, however, fond of the idea of having to recycle Homestar. He watched as his robot situated itself and then went perfectly still, powering down for the last time. He frowned and folded his arms, sighing with frustration. "Six years went into building you..."

His creation, of course, gave no response. He hadn't expected one anyway since he'd programmed the disassembly protocol himself. He shook his head after a moment and reached for his tool kit- but it wasn't in its proper place.

Homeschool looked around until he spotted it nearby, a few tools strewn out on a counter. He glanced at the lifeless form of Homestar and raised an eyebrow. Performing his own repairs in secret? That hadn't been in the programming either, with the exception of emergency procedures. He was lucky he'd caught this before it got any worse.


	6. Chapter 6

**Prototype 0.6**

**A collaborative fanfiction by Jenny (chakramchucker) and Mu (badpirate)**

It was twenty minutes later when Homeschool heard the urgent knocking at the door. No, not knocking. _Slamming_. He put down his tools and pulled up his welding goggles, looking over at his security camera's feed from the other side of the room.

He squinted, not recognizing Strong Bad without his mask on. He leaned over and clicked a button, voice going through a small speaker by the doorbell. "I'm not interested in anything you're selling, have a nice day."

Strong Bad glared at the speaker hatefully. "I'm not selling anything, you bastard! Let me in right now." He kicked the wall for lack of something more useful to do.

Homeschool recognized the voice and the attitude instantly. He certainly didn't want to answer the door now. "I'm in the middle of something right now, Strong Bad. What do you want?"

Strong Bad looked around, eventually finding the camera. He pointed at it threateningly. "I want to talk to Homestar."

At that, Homeschool glanced down at the open chest cavity he'd been systematically deconstructing. "Well, I'm afraid that's not possible. He's- ...at an interview." He didn't need Strong Bad making this day any worse by flipping out over the loss of his toy.

"Where?" Strong Bad demanded. He held his phone up to the camera. "He's not answering his texts or calls. That's not like him. Where is he?"

"That would be because I revoked his cell phone privileges. I seem to remember telling both of you to stay away from each other," he replied. Only the annoyance in his voice was real. Thank god for all that practice he'd gotten in lying over the years to keep his project a secret. "As for where, I'm not about to tell you just so you can stalk him further."

"I'm not stalking him! For your information, he came after me," Strong Bad snapped, pointing to himself. He looked away angrily. "I get that you don't like me, but it's not like that anymore. I'm not using him to steal from ATMs."

Homeschool glared at the video screen bitterly. "No, you've moved on to using him to fulfill your physical needs rather than your monetary needs now, haven't you."

Strong Bad struggled for a response to that. "It's not like that," he growled. "I really ... I really care about him. I don't care that he's a machine, I just ... I think I might lo... Look. Fine." He pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a shuddering, frustrated sigh. He didn't speak for what seemed like an eternity, and when he did it came out oddly calm.

"Change his name, change your name, move a thousand miles away, erase any data he has of me but ..." He looked up at the camera pleadingly. "... but at least let me say goodbye."

Homeschool stared at the video screen. He'd expected the angry outbursts, threats, and anything along those lines. Not that.

He disliked swearing, but now seemed an appropriate moment to curse and he did so under his breath. "I ca... " he sighed loudly, the outdoor speaker hissing with static. It couldn't hurt, could it? He glanced at the outdoor monitor again, wincing. Damn those eyes.

Maybe a sense of closure would make him go away. "Fine. You can leave him a recorded message if you like. I'll get it to him when he comes home."

Strong Bad looked at the speaker, finally pulling his eyes from the camera. "A message," he muttered. _So I really won't see him again._

"Fine," he relented. "Start recording." He waited for a moment, until a faint beep from the camera started. He glanced up at it momentarily. What the hell could he even say? 'Have a nice life without me, I hope next time you pick a guy who isn't so awful?'

He sighed, burying his face in his hand, visibly in thought. It seemed like forever before he finally found the words. Pulling his hand away from his face, he sighed, shoulders slumped. He ran his fingers across the speaker, and looked back up at the camera, unsure if the message would be purely auditory or have video to go with it. Not like he'd ever find out. He wasn't even completely certain that Homeschool was recording. Either way, he didn't move.

"I love you." Immediately after the words passed his lips, he looked away. "And I'm sorry. For everything." He clenched his hand, scratching the speaker lightly as he did. "Just make sure he gets it." He slammed his fist on the wall and turned away, walking to his house across the street.

Homeschool hit pause on the display screen and curiously watched him disappear out of the frame. Love?

The crowning achievement of his project was to make an android that could establish relationships. That was the final mile mark of his artificial intelligence project- the final hurdle he couldn't quite get Homestar to jump. Until now he was certain he'd utterly failed at equipping his creation with the means to overcome that obstacle.

But until now, he had misjudged Strong Bad's latest intentions... thus possibly misjudging the entire situation. So many new variables came to mind. Was Homestar operating outside of his programming parameters because he'd finally developed beyond them? Sure, he wasn't in an a-typical, heterosexual relationship, but what was gender to an android?

Homeschool took off his welding goggles, tossing them onto his workbench and getting up. He needed more time to think things over. This was something he couldn't afford to be wrong about.

Strong Bad wandered into his house, attempting to remain composed until he at least turned on some of the loudest music he could find. He walked past the answering machine, glancing at the 22 missed messages. All from the office, he was sure. He ignored them and headed the stairs, miserable enough to be mistaken for Strong Sad.

It was like that for days. As suspected, he was fired from his job, which gave him more time to sit around and feel sorry for himself than he'd have liked. He looked through the help wanted ads boredly and with disdain. His specialty, after all, was in computers, and nowadays computers just made him want to throw up most of the time. He flipped the newspaper shut and pushed his breakfast away. "I'm not hungry."

"You haven't had anything to eat since that pop tart on Wednesday," Strong Sad pointed out. "You need to eat something." He'd been afraid to say much to his brother since the incident in the library. He had seen Strong Bad pretty depressed before and it was always disturbing, but this was way worse than the week of sulking that followed his break up with Marzipan. At least he'd had the sisters to brag about in the aftermath of that mess.

Strong Bad crossed his arms onto the table and leaned against it, pretending to read the article on the front of the page. "Not hungry," he repeated quietly.

Strong Sad frowned, stirring his spoon thoughtfully in his cereal. "The Cheat was looking for you last night again. Maybe you should get out of the house for a while instead of having me keep telling him you're sick."

Strong Bad responded with an annoyed grunt. "Still sick," he sighed, getting up. He folded up the newspaper and tucked it under his arm.

Strong Sad got up and caught him by the shoulder. "No, you're not," he said. "But you are really starting to freak me out. If you don't eat, I'm gonna get Strong Mad to help me drag you to the hospital. You need to stop... moping or you will get sick. For real."

He brushed him off and glanced at him over his shoulder. Normally, an order like that from Strong Sad would warrant a punch in the face, but he seemed mostly unphased. "Fine. I'll eat." He sat back and picked at his overly soggy cereal. "Happy now?"

"I... guess," Strong Sad conceded. At least he was eating. Maybe he just needed more time to get back to normal. The problem was, he didn't know how much longer he could handle seeing him so depressed. That was supposed to be his thing, not Strong Bad's. At least his misery got channeled through proper creative outlets. It didn't suit his brother at all.

Strong Bad barely got through half of the bowl before he poured it down the sink and head for the living room, curling up on a reclining chair. He pretended to read the magazine left there, but tossed it aside when he realized it was Popular Science monthly. He zoned out for a while, eyes at least in the direction of the television.

A few hours later, the doorbell rang and he lifted his head up to glanced at the door. He sighed and went back to watching television.

Strong Sad called down the stairs after it rang twice more. "You better answer that 'cause I'm not making any more excuses for you if it's The Cheat."

"Augh," Strong Bad moaned, pulling himself up. He glared at the stairs before opening the door.

Homeschool was standing just outside. "I said that's enough, we'll come back la-" he abruptly stopped scolding the person on the porch beside him and cleared his throat. "Oh. Hello, Strong Bad."

The very familiar athlete to his right grinned. "Hi!" He glanced smugly at Homeschool and elbowed him, just about knocking him off the step. "Toldja he was home."

Strong Bad didn't respond. Homeschool was talking- or at least, his mouth was moving and his hands were going all over the place, but whatever he was saying was just white noise to him.

"Homestar?" He founded himself grinning. "Homestar!" He threw his arms around him excitedly.

Homestar chuckled and hugged him back. "I heard you were worried about me."  
Homeschool finally seemed to have given up trying to talk and now stood nearby with his arms folded, waiting.

"Strong Sad said you were being disassembled!" Strong Bad defended. He whipped around to stare at Homeschool. "What are you doing here? What's going on?"

"Your brother was misinformed. As I was trying to say earlier..." Homeschool sighed, annoyed at having to repeat himself. "I realized I might have been mistaken in my initial assumptions. In light of Homestar's success, I refitted him with better equipment. Naturally he insisted on coming over here as soon as I reactivated him-"

"I got upgrades," Homestar declared.

"Yes, that is what I just said."

"...and guess what, I'm waterproof now," Homestar continued excitedly. Homeschool rolled his eyes.

"I've made quite a few other, more important modifications to his design but yes, there is that."

Strong Bad looked between them. "...so, why are you ... here?" he repeated, confused. He pulled away from Homestar slightly- or at least tried to. Homestar kept a fairly firm grip on him.

Homeschool pushed up his glasses, obviously a bit awkward. "Um. Maybe you should tell him, Homestar."

"Well... I got your message." Homestar grinned weakly, a faint blush fading into existence. He didn't appear to notice, though, as it was a new feature he hadn't been informed about yet. "I love you too so uh... if you like, still wanna date or even hang out or whatever that'd be awesome. Especially now that I'm actually allowed to see you."

Strong Bad blinked a few times, and turned back to Homeschool. "He's allowed to see me?" he asked cautiously. "Really? But you said ..." He trailed off, still confused.

"I'm still not saying he couldn't have made a better choice," Homeschool muttered with a brief glance at Homestar. "But... that is the risk of inventing something with free will. You could say I've adapted my research as the situation required it, rather than resorting to a complete do-over."

"So ... you're saying ... you give us permission to be together?" he asked, brow furrowed. "No more sneaking out or pretending he's hanging out with Marzipan or grabbing takeout ...? He's ... you're ..."

He looked up at Homestar and grinned. "Really? It's really okay?" He hugged him back before he could change his mind, flashing Homeschool a grin. "Oh man this is the best! I'm not gonna say thank you because that's ... lame, but ... thank you? Okay, I did say it but ... whatever." He pulled away so he could tiptoe up and kiss Homestar.

Homeschool looked away, clearing his throat awkwardly. "Y-yes, well. Like I said, it's a step in my research. You two will be kept under very close observation."

Strong Bad broke the kiss abruptly. "Observation? What, why? Don't observe us you pervert."

"I don't plan to personally observe you two all the time," Homeschool clarified, flustered by the accusation. "But I will expect full reports on a regular basis. It will help me address any malfunctions and keep track of his development." He handed Strong Bad a clipboard. "You can start by filling that out."

Strong Bad looked it over, unimpressed. "What the ... is Homestar responding to physical contact in the appropriate manner...? Are you responding to cont..." He shook his head, blushing furiously. "There is no way in hell that I'm filling that out! I can answer it now, straight forward- YES. Homestar likes making out."

Homeschool cleared his throat. "Among those upgrades were some additional nerve endings. It's very important that I know if they're working with the desired affect, for both you and Homestar's sake."

"Why?" Strong Bad asked, unsure if he wanted the answer.

"Well, when Homestar asked me if he had a sex drive, I just assumed..." Homeschool twirled his hand, face going beet red. "That you'd eventually ... end up at that stage."

"Yeah. I can totally have sex now," Homestar announced, then he looked over at Homeschool and frowned. "You never did explain everything very well. If we didn't get that one channel you're always locking out on the TV then I wouldn't have a clue what to do with-"

"I'm sure Strong Bad will help you fill in the gaps if you get around to that," Homeschool interrupted, thoroughly uncomfortable now.

"Well I looked it up on the internet later, too," Homestar shrugged.

Strong Bad was quiet for a minute or two, jaw dropped. He was mortified. "You've gotta be kididng me."

"No. It's important that Homestar have access to all aspects of a regular relationship, and this includes fornication. And I need you to keep track of his performance, both the good points and where he's lacking," Homeschool said with a nod.

Strong Bad smacked his head against the wall of his house. "Ohmygod I'm so not having this conversation." Smack smack smack. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU."

"I just want ..." Homeschool hesitated. "I just what him to be happy. He's happy with you." He pulled out a pen and clicked it. "Now, two to three times a week should be suff-"  
Strong Bad plugged his ears, tuning him out. He opened one eye- nope, he was still talking. Ugh. He grabbed Homestar's wrist and pulled him inside, slamming the door in Homeschool's face. "Hey!"

He sighed, relieved. He gave Homestar a grin. "I'm so glad you're not scrap metal." There was banging at the door and Strong Bad rolled his eyes, snagging Homestar's wrists. He tiptoed up and smirked. "I do like the sound of these upgrades, though. But I think my favorite is ..." He mulled it over for a split second. "The way you look when you blush. So freakin' cute."

Homestar's eyes widened. "Aw, man... I blush now? I didn't turn that on. It musta been s... some kinda malfunction."

"Yeah, ya do. Really bad, too," he snickered, the aforementioned upgrade taking affect. "It's adorable. I love it." He wrapped his arms around his neck, glancing around for any witnesses. "And you," he added.

"I guess I can live with it then," Homestar said, smiling. He leaned in and kissed him.  
Strong Bad kissed him back eagerly, pulling away to glare at the door that Homeschool was still banging at like crazy. He raised an annoyed eyebrow. "Ugh."

He rolled his eyes and grabbed his hand. "Come on. Strong Sad bought a new DVD player. You wanna find out what happens to Buttercup, right?"

"Heck yes!" Homestar blurted gleefully, following him downstairs without even a second glance at the door. "Oooh, we should make popcorn!"

"As you wish," Strong Bad mused, smirking at him. He put his free hand to his stomach and frowned. "I'm starving." He shot one last look over his shoulder at Homeschool, who was peeking through the modest window by the door, and stuck his tongue out at him, wrapping an arm around Homestar's waist before they disappeared down the basement.

Homeschool quietly seethed. "This is gonna throw off all my data, you realize!" he shouted, but to no avail. He huffed. "Oh well," he muttered. "At least he's happy." He flipped through his sheets. _Besides,_ he reasoned, _I can always check Homestar's memory banks later._


End file.
